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SKETCHES 



OF 



AMERICA 



AND 



AMERICANS 



BY 

GEORGE I. HAIGHT 



1920 

HANSON ROACH FOWLER CO. 

CHICAGO 



• H 14 



Copyright 1920 
Hanson Roach Fowler Co. 



JAN -7 1921 
g)CI,A604881 



-\^v^ I 



TO MY WIFE 



Preface 

THERE is no country whose story is more inter- 
esting than that of our own United States. To 
the student of history, America offers a most fertile 
field. Our annals ought to appeal deeply to all of 
our citizens. From a wider popular acquaintance 
with our past will come a better understanding of 
our institutions, a clearer idea of the rights and 
privileges of Americans and their foundation, a 
wider appreciation of the cost of the citizenship we 
enjoy, and a deeper conception of our duties in cher- 
ishing and preserving our inheritance. 

In the American narratives, thousands of men 
and women appear who were leaders in great ac- 
complishments. Some were partly or wholly ap- 
preciated by their contemporaries ; many were not 
generally known or understood. Among all of these 
are multitudes of heroes. In a country's heroes 
can be found the measure of that country's ideals. 
More than this, by a knowledge of heroes ideals can 
be created and stimulated. 

To arouse, though only in small measure, an in- 
terest in the heroic and vital of America, these 
short essays are written. Their fields are very 
small. None is complete, either as biography or 
history. All relate to subjects and events that are 
widely known. If they command attention suffi- 
cient to induce further particular study by those 
to whom any element of novelty is presented, or by 



PREFACE 



those to whom they serve only as small reminders 
of the greater fields from which they are drawn, 
they will have succeeded to the full limit of the 
author's purpose. 

G. I. H. 



The story of the Alamo is of men 
who, rather than yield to a tyrant, 
fought valiantly under terrific odds 
and died in defense of their natural 
rights. 



The Alamo 



"Then came Santa Anna; a crescent of flame! 

Then the red escalade; then the fight hand to hand; 
Such an unequal fight as never had name 

Since the Persian hordes butchered that doomed Spar- 
tan band. 
All day, — all day and all night; and the morning? so slow. 

Through the battle smoke mantling the Alamo. 

"Now silence! Such silence! Two thousand lay dead 
In a crescent outside! And within? Not a breath 

Save the gasp of a woman, with gory gashed head, 
All alone, all alone there, waiting for death; 

And she but a nurse. Yet when shall we know 
Another like this of the Alamo?" 

— Joaquin Miller. 

IN the heart of the city of San Antonio, Texas, 
an old mission lifts its scarified walls. "The 
Cottonwood" is the English translation of its pres- 
ent name. To the Spanish monks who built it two 
centuries ago it was known as the Mission of San 
de Valero. It was afterwards called, and is now 
known to every American, as "The Alamo." 

It is approached along a busy street, where a 
part of the old enclosure wall is still standing. One 
passes through the door of the church as reverently 
as if called there by a profound religious appeal. 
Within is silence. The few casual visitors move 
noiselessly over the dirt and gravel floor. The 
sounds of clanging cars and the busy bustle of the 
street are unheard. 



THE ALAMO 



Down the length of the building is the spot where 
once the chancel stood. How little need that it 
should be there now, for every stone is an altar in 
this great American shrine. To the left of the 
entrance stood the old doors, rudely carved of na- 
tive oak. They yielded to the early zealots; the 
hands of Indians have piously touched them; they 
show the battering marks of Santa Anna's soldiers. 
Behind these stout old doors once a little band of 
stouter hearts had gloriously fought and died. 

One enters the little room where in the early 
spring of 1836 James Bowie lay sick. The white 
walls that once had enclosed him arch over in proud 
silence. In the opposite room, he breathed out his 
soul with his deadly knife clutched in his hands and 
dead enemies piled about him. Here it was that 
Davy Crockett fell, his rifle, "Old Betsy," a gift 
from admirers in Philadelphia, with him. How 
many times had it in that immortal siege sent its 
hurtling death when gently pressed by the steady 
finger of its master! 

Crossing the church again, there is found another 
thick-walled room, the old burial place of the priests. 
Many of their skeletons have been removed, but 
underneath the earthen floor is much of their dust, 
now trampled over by the curious multitude. An 
old font is cut here in one of the walls, but no holy 
water is now in it. The empty chalice remains as 
a memorial of the fingers that have touched its 
edge — fingers once held aloft when "dust to dust" 



THE ALAMO 



was said, and now mingled with the soil beneath the 
visitors' feet. 

The adjacent room has been, in turn, sacristy and 
munition magazine. Now it holds no cowl or sur- 
plice, no shot or powder. 

In the body of the church the walls are hung 
with pictures and mementos. A letter of Davy 
Crockett, a picture of Bowie, and one of Sam Hous- 
ton are there. An old cannon, pistol and rifles are 
among the trophies, but nowhere is to be found the 
silver mounted "Old Betsy." As far as is known, 
no hand ever pointed it again, no keen eye again 
looked along its barrel when Crockett's nerveless 
arm loosed its hold. 

Near the front of the church the visitor is shown 
where Colonel Travis drew his dead line. 

What a scene this pile once witnessed! What a 
story its bullet-spattered and cannon-scarred walls 
tell! "Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat. 
The Alamo had none." Nevertheless, the story of 
its siege as it was gathered from mute memorials 
and from the lips of it« defenders' enemies cannot 
be dimmed in the annals of heroic defenses. 

The war of Texan independence was a success- 
ful struggle for the maintenance of those rights 
with which men are endowed by birth. At the in- 
vitation of Mexico, Americans had settled on the 
prairies of the province of Texas. These pioneers 
had come there on the understanding that they 
would enjoy all the rights guaranteed those within 



THE ALAMO 



the confines of Mexico by the Constitution of 1824. 
Santa Anna, the usurper, had denied those rights. 
The men from the North were unhesitatingly ready 
to fight for their liberty. In the war that followed 
many heroic deeds were done, deeds that thrill us 
now in the recounting. The massacre at Goliad 
will never be forgotten. Men will always remem- 
ber the Texan charge at San Jacinto. The battle, 
however, where every man fought to the last, the 
siege from which no American survived, has per- 
haps taken the greatest hold on the imagination of 
succeeding generations. Thus the name "Alamo" 
is now one for the conjuring of patriots and heroes. 
It brings to mind one of the richest memories of 
the American people. 

The war commenced in a small battle at Gon- 
zales, in October, 1835. Other minor engagements 
followed. In December Colonel Neill took the 
Alamo and the town. On February 11, 1836, 
Colonel Travis assumed command of the regulars. 
The volunteers elected James Bowie as their 
Colonel. The Mexican army gathered on the Rio 
Grande for the invasion of Texas. On February 
24th Santa Anna's trained troops were advancing 
on the Alamo. Colonel Travis' appeals for help to 
the yet unorganized government of Texas had not 
been answered. A force, of about one hundred and 
eighty Texans prepared to resist, to the last man, 
the threatened assault. Colonel Travis gave to 
those who desired to leave the opportunity while 



THE ALAMO 



yet there was time, but, save one, all remained. 
As they stepped across the dead line drawn on the 
floor of the church, each man knew that he was 
consigning himself to the last sacrifice. What a 
picture for a painter ! He who would draw it must 
depict no armor and waving plumes. No boasting 
knights must be shown. Upon the canvas will 
appear a little band of modest men, cool and un- 
afraid ; their hunting shirts of buckskin ; their hands 
hardened with toil ; their faces bronzed by the wind 
and sun ; their weapons, rifles which they had borne 
from early youth. In their faces must appear the 
quiet light that reveals the steady, inner fire of 
American manhood. 

The Mexican force has been variously estimated 
from fifteen hundred to six thousand. Santa Anna 
called upon Colonel Travis to surrender. His reply 
came from the cannon's mouth. The assault began. 
For many days it lasted. From every side were the 
enemy repulsed; the Mexican soldiers who looked 
over the outer wall saw briefly and then closed their 
eyes forever. 

On the morning of Sunday, March 6, Santa Anna 
stormed the place. There were thousands against 
a handful. Hundreds of enemies paid final toll to 
the Texan marksmanship. Hundreds of others lay 
down with their wounds. Finally the doors gave 
way. The remaining defenders fought with sword 
and dagger. How the lightning played as steel met 
steel! How the two-edged knife of Bowie drank, 



THE ALAMO 



and drank again, of the crimson flood! The mas- 
sacre was completed. The price of freedom was 
paid. The Mexican General received it to the last 
vital drop. The Alamo's defense passed into his- 
tory. 

The following morning Houston, hurrying to the 
relief of Travis' command, dismounted as the sun 
was rising. He listened — as only a plainsman can 
listen — for the Alamo's signal gun. All was silence. 
Across the prairie came a message, borne by the 
spirits of heroes. It was remembered at San Jacinto. 
It will be remembered as long as America endures. 
True, the Alamo had no messenger of defeat. There 
was no defeat, but victory — the victory of men who 
knew how to die. 

I stepped out into the May sunshine. In the yard 
of the old convent, in a star-shaped bed, the pansies 
were blooming, some with the blue of the sky, some 
white, and others of deep red, drunk from hallowed 
soil. Across the street, above the Federal building 
a flag floated. Its colors were those of the pansies. 
Its corner was sprinkled with stars. 



One of the very many useful ob- 
servations that may he made upon the 
career of George Washington is that 
by a careful and thorough education 
he was prepared to successfully meet 
the great emergencies of his versatile 
life. 



George Washington 

"Where may the wearied eye repose 

When gazing on the Great; 
Where neither guilty glory glows. 

Nor despicable state? 
Yes — one — the first — the last — the best— 

The Cincinnatus of the West, 

Whom envy dared not hate, 
Bequeath the name of Washington, 
To make men blush there was but one!" 

— Lord Byron. 

AT the foot of a slope leading down from the old 
Washington mansion at Mt. Vernon, Vir- 
ginia, stands a simple vault of brick and stone. 
Within it is the marble-enclosed dust of the first 
Great American. About it are forest trees. Below 
it the great Potomac takes its seaward way. Before 
it, year after year, come multitudes to do reverence 
at this shrine, one of the most sacred in America. 

In Westmoreland County, Virginia, George 
Washington was born, February 22nd, 1732. His 
father was Augustine Washington, a farmer. His 
mother was Mary Ball, Augustine Washington's 
second wife. By the first wife four children were 
born, one of them being Lawrence. By Mary Ball 
six were born, of whom George was the eldest. 

The four-room house, the home of his earliest 
childhood, was the usual small and humble birth- 
place of greatness. 

A few years after the coming of George, the fam- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



ily moved to the banks of the Rappahannock, oppo- 
site Fredericksburg, where in 1743 Washington's 
father died. 

Until the autumn of his fifteenth year, George 
attended "backwoods" schools. He studied dili- 
gently and played hard. He was proficient in 
mathematics, and he learned surveying. At thir- 
teen years of age he prepared a code of one hundred 
ten precepts which guided him throughout life. 
Some are as follows: 

"Associate yourself with men of good quality if 
you esteem your own reputation, for it is better 
to be alone than in bad company." 

"Undertake not what you cannot perform, but 
be careful to keep your promise." 

"Let your recreations be manful, not sinful." 

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little 
spark of celestial fire called conscience." 

On leaving school, he went to live with his half- 
brother Lawrence. Lawrence was fourteen years 
his senior; he was well educated and had, in the 
war against Spain, served with the English under 
Admiral Vernon. From his father Lawrence had 
inherited a tract of land on the Potomac, which, in 
honor of his admiral, he named Mount Vernon. Not 
far distant was the home of William Fairfax, whose 
daughter Lawrence married. A relation of Wil- 
liam, Lord Fairfax, arrived from England about 
the time George Washington came to live with his 
half-brother. Lord Fairfax was a well educated 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



man, a graduate of Oxford. George saw much of 
the Fairfax family, both at their home and at Mt. 
Vernon. At Mt. Vernon there resided, too. Ad- 
jutant Muse, a military tactician of skill, who had 
served with Lawrence in England's West India 
campaign. Also, there came to Mt. Vernon another 
companion in arms of Lawrence, one Jacob Van 
Braam. He was a great swordsman. 

During the few years that George resided with 
his half-brother, he surveyed for Lord Fairfax in 
the Alleghanies. At fifteen schooling in the back- 
woods was finished, but at Mt. Vernon George 
Washington entered and attended one of the great- 
est universities that has ever been set upon Amer- 
ican soil. He was the only student. The faculty 
numbered five, — the two Fairfaxes, Lawrence, Muse 
and Van Braam. From the literary Lord Fairfax, 
who in England had written for The Spectator, and 
now past middle life, the student must have gained 
much. By the well educated, widely experienced 
Lawrence, were large contributions to George's 
training made. Van Braam taught thoroughly the 
swordsman's art. With books, drills and oral in- 
struction. Muse laid deep the foundation of military 
genius. 

Washington was fond of sports. He was an ex- 
cellent wrestler and a fine horseman, and to these 
gifts he added his training in the Alleghany forests, 
where woodcraft was learned and a wide acquaint- 
ance with the Indians gained. In all his study. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



training and exercise, Washington was diligent and 
earnest, and, too, he highly trained his powers of 
observation. 

In the fall of 1751 Lawrence visited the Barba- 
does in quest of health. George accompanied him. 
The trip was unavailing, as Lawrence died the fol- 
lowing spring, shortly after his return to Mt. Ver- 
non. Upon this trip Washington's diary shows his 
power as an observer and his interest in everything 
he saw — the soil, the crops, the people and the im- 
ports and exports. While in the Barbadoes, Wash- 
ington was ill with smallpox. This the diary re- 
cords. 

George Washington was not an accident. He 
was highly trained for the great work that came 
to him. His versatility and his sureness were the 
products of educating toil. To Lawrence Wash- 
ington, as well as to George, are we indebted, for 
through Lawrence George gained the opportunity 
for an education, an opportunity which now is so 
easily open to all. 

Of no man in history have we more accurate 
knowledge than of our first President. Nearly 
everything he wrote, from his precepts when thir- 
teen years of age, to his will, which he himself 
penned, has been preserved. A study of his life 
shows always that the s,teady unfolding of his pow- 
ers came through no magic formula. His growth 
was inspired by diligence. 

It is no wonder that on the mission to the French, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



above the Ohio River, Governor Dinwiddie sent 
George Washington, Virginia's best equipped repre- 
sentative for such an undertaking. 

Trained as he was, it is not surprising that at the 
battle of Great Meadows, Washington was in com- 
mand. At the battle of the Monongahela, no one 
less prepared than he could have used the Virginia 
troops to save the remnants of Braddock's army, 
shattered under the fierce Indian ambush attack. 

He was fitted for membership in the Virginia 
House of Burgesses and was sent there to serve. 
When the Revolution came, to him, because he 
was best prepared, the Continental Congress turned 
for its military commander. The stupendous dif- 
ficulties of his undertaking are now beyond com- 
plete appreciation. One of lesser early preparation 
than he could neither have endured or solved them. 
His troubles, his defeats, his triumphs are suggested 
by the names Long Island, Harlem Heights, White 
Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, German- 
town, Valley Forge, Arnold and Yorktown. Did 
not Muse's instruction bear fruit in the masterly 
retreat through New Jersey in 1776, and the rapid 
movement that hemmed in Cornwallis in 1781? 
These two accomplishments alone place Washing- 
ton among the greatest generals of history. 

At the close of the war he devoted himself to 
farming. With great foresight he carefully planned 
the linking of the East and West by joining the 
headwaters of the Potomac and the Ohio rivers. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



In farming he had been trained in his childhood; 
of the possibiHties for internal navigation he had 
learned as a youthful surveyor. 

He was made a delegate to the Constitutional 
Convention, and became its President. His early 
studies had sufficiently begun his preparation for 
this duty. He was able to reconcile the views of 
Hamilton and those of the Jeffersonian school. The 
contributions of the great thinkers of that Conven- 
tion, who had gleaned much from experience and 
from history were, by Washington's careful judg- 
ment, stripped of their dross and from the remain- 
ing pure gold was the Constitution fashioned. 
Soldier, student, farmer, patriot, statesman — he was 
ready for the great office of President of the United 
States. How faithfully and well he served, all 
know. At the close of his second term he gave to 
his country the immortal Farewell Address. Of 
its many expressions of wisdom we quote but that 
one which points out the necessity for education 
in a government such as ours: "Promote then, as 
an object of primary importance, institutions for 
the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion 
as the structure of government gives force to public 
opinion, it is essential that public opinion should 
be enlightened." 

This truth as to governments is also applicable 
to individuals. No American life illustrates better 
than does George Washington's the value of a gen- 
eral education. To the great contributions made by 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



his parents and by his early schoolmasters, Mr. 
Hobby and Mr. Williams, to George Washington, 
the child, were added the vast ones of Lawrence 
Washington, the Fairfaxes, Muse and Van Braam, 
to George Washington, the youth. Through his 
training he became a well rounded, versatile, use- 
ful man, one ever ready to serve when the call for 
service should come. It is not surprising that he 
became the "Father of his Country." It is not 
strange that his life is known to, and studied by, 
all the earth's peoples. It is natural that ever pil- 
grimages shall be made to his tomb, there to learn 
at this appropriately simple shrine, that the mother 
of genius is toil. 




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For principle the Pilgrims dared, 
with courage they came, by faith they 
endured and through toil they won. 



Plymouth Rock 

"The Pilgrim Spirit has not fled; 
It walks in noon's broad light; 
And it watches the bed of the glorious dead^ 
With the holy stars by night. 
It watches the bed of the brave who have bled. 
And still guard this ice-bound shore, 
'Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay. 
Shall foam and freeze no more." 

— John Pierpont. 

ON September i6, 1620, a small schooner, in 
command of a pirate captain, set sail from 
England. Her Pilgrim passengers thought they 
were bound for the vicinity of the mouth of the 
Hudson River, America. Captain Jones, in con- 
spiracy with certain British nobles, intended, how- 
ever, to land them in New England. How fortunate 
were the circumstances that led to the Mayflower's 
voyage ! How happy the conspiracy that took them 
to where Cape Cod reaches like a giant arm into 
the Atlantic, waiting to receive within its curve the 
little bark that was to infuse life and strength into 
the whole continental body. 

Under a canopy of stone, beyond the reach of the 
waves that once heat against it, lays Plymouth 
Rock. It is about six feet long, three feet wide and 
three feet high. On its face are cut the figures 
1620. Daily, year after year, visitors look upon it. 
Here, one chill December's day, came a little band 
of Pilgrims. On the slope of the hill behind it. 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



they built their rude houses. In the two decades 
that followed the planting of their colony, about 
twenty thousand English men and women made 
their perilous way across the Atlantic to this and 
other settlements in the wilderness of New Eng- 
land. Then for a long time immigration almost 
ceased. To-day, descendants from this original 
stock are found in all the forty-eight states of the 
Union. They have wielded, and still wield, a vast 
influence in American life. It is, therefore, not sur- 
prising that of these first settlers much inquiry has 
been made, whole libraries written, many relics 
preserved, and that the place of their landing has, 
through three centuries, been a shrine for their 
beneficiaries. 

Advantageous changes in the history of the world 
have sometimes come from doctrinal religious dis- 
putes. No sooner had the Church of England been 
established, than controversies arose within it as 
to the powers of Church dignitaries and the cere- 
monials of Christian worship. One faction believed 
in lodging great power in the prelates and in elab- 
orate services, the other in a curbing of that power 
and in simple worship. 

A congregation of the latter faction was formed 
at Scrooby. To them came maltreatment, perse- 
cution and lodgment in prison cells. With much 
difficulty, a group of them escaped to Amsterdam, 
Holland. There they found much religious alterca- 
tion. From this they fled to Leyden. Following 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



about twelve years' residence there, they determined 
to seek out a spot free from the arguments of dogma. 
They, with the rest of Europe, had heard much of 
America. Thence they determined to go, to enjoy 
civil liberty and to worship God according to the 
dictates of their own consciences. 

To this end, two of their number, Robert Cush- 
man and John Carver, went to England to arrange 
with the Virginia Company for a grant of land. 
This they finally secured, but the Pilgrims never 
reached it; chance and fate had destined for them 
a bleaker home. A group of English adventurers 
financed the undertaking, upon an agreement to 
divide with the Pilgrims the profits it was thought 
would be secured through "trade, traffic, trucking, 
working and fishing" in the New World. These 
arrangements completed, a small sailing craft, the 
Speedwell, was provided to take the colonists 
from Delft-Haven, the port of Leyden, to England, 
whence it, together with a larger ship, the May- 
flower, was to convey them and some of the Pil- 
grims resident in England to "North Virginia." 

From Southampton the two vessels put to sea. 
Twice were they driven back by storms. The cap- 
tain of the Speedwell then refused again to ven- 
ture because of the alleged unseaworthiness of his 
ship. Many of its passengers v/ere transferred to 
the already crowded Mayflower. This historic ves- 
sel was probably about ninety feet long, with about 
a twenty-four foot beam. Her stem and stern were 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



high. It is likely she had three masts and was 
rigged like other ships of her day. She carried at 
least two boats— one a shallop, about thirty feet 
long, which was cut in two for stowing, and a skiff. 
How brave were they who ventured in such a tiny 
craft! The Sparrow-Hawk, which, after its cross- 
ing in 1626, was wrecked on Cape Cod, was barely 
forty feet in length. Its skeleton may now be seen 
in the Pilgrims' Hall at Plymouth, Massachusetts. 
The passengers numbered one hundred and two, 
the crew probably twenty or twenty-five. Who 
were these intrepid souls who left the habitations 
of their kind to find civil and religious freedom in 
toil and struggle upon the rocky coast of the vast 
continental wilderness? For such an undertaking 
should we expect doughty knights with burnished 
arms, or men of courtly graces who would do and 
dare, far from the plaudits of the multitude? Should 
we hope for men who measure rank in velvets and 
plumes, and in the habiliments of ease? These we 
neither expect nor find. Rather we find John Car- 
ver, a merchant of sixty years, his wife and six 
helpers ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-seven 
years ; Elder Brewster, a printer, his wife, two chil- 
dren and two bound boys; Edward Winslow, a 
printer, his wife and three young servants ; William 
Bradford, a silk worker, and his wife; Doctor Sam- 
uel Fuller, a physician, and William Butten, his 
assistant ; Isaac Allerton, a tailor, his wife, three 
children and a servant; Captain Miles Standish, a 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



soldier, and his wife; Christopher Martin, a trades- 
man, his wife and two servants; William White, a 
wool carder, his wife, one child and two servants; 
William Mullins, his wife, two children and one 
servant; Richard Warren, a farmer; Stephen Hop- 
kins, occupation unknown, his wife, three children 
and two servants; John Crackstone and his son; 
Edward Tilley, a silk worker, his wife and two 
infant cousins; John Tilley, a silk worker, his wife 
and daughter ; Francis Cooke, a wool carder and his 
son ; James Chilton, his wife and daughter ; Thomas 
Rogers, a merchant, and his son; Degory Priest, a 
hatter; John Rigdale and wife; Edward Fuller, his 
wife and son; Thomas Tinker, a wood sawyer, his 
wife and son; John Turner, a merchant, and two 
sons; Francis Eaton, a carpenter, his wife and son; 
Gilbert Winslow, a carpenter; John Alden, a 
cooper ; Peter Browne, a mechanic ; John Billington, 
his wife and two sons; Moses Fletcher, a black- 
smith; Thomas Williams; John Goodman, a linen 
weaver ; Edward Margeson ; Richard Britteredge ; 
Richard Clarke; Richard Gardiner; John Alderton; 
Thomas English ; William Trevore ; and Ely — first 
name unknown — the last four being seamen. Some 
of the married men who were unaccompanied by 
their wives and families were joined by them in 
America later. Oceanus Hopkins was born on the 
voyage and Peregrine White was born in Province- 
town harbor. Counting these two, the total pas- 
senger list is one hundred and four. 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



How throughout history and in our own day the 
great advances are made by those who toil! The 
contributions of the sluggard are few, except in the 
example to be avoided by those who would succeed. 
From common folk, from merchants, mechanics, 
farmers, carpenters and other workers springs the 
strength of great nations. To these outwardly or- 
dinary people was given the mission of founding 
Democracy in America. None of them could have 
dreamed that centuries later a huge graven figure, 
symbolic of their courageous faith, would surmount 
Plymouth Hill and that upon its pedestal a grate- 
ful posterity would reverently read the passenger 
list of the Mayflower. 

For over two months the straining ship buffeted 
the surly sea. What misery this crowded argosy 
held! Nineteen women, ten young girls and many 
other children, together with the men, suffered the 
difficulties of the narrow quarters in a small "wet 
ship." Little opportunity for cooking was had, and 
their food was generally eaten cold and raw. The 
pains of their sicknesses were multiplied by the 
inconveniences of their close confinement. During 
the voyage a deck beam broke. Fortunately one 
of the passengers had brought a lifting jack ; by 
means of this the beam was repaired. 

They carried a considerable cargo, which included 
hogs, poultry, goats and dogs. Of only two dogs 
are we certain — one a mastiff, the other a spaniel. 
Their lack of space prevented the shipping of cows 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



or of horses. They brought some furniture and a 
considerable quantity of clothing; also they pos- 
sessed a few books, several of which were doubtless 
Bibles. The furniture included a few chairs, small 
tables, beds, cradles, chests, spinning wheels, looms 
and household utensils ; also they brought me- 
chanics' tools and hand agricultural implements. 
Among the former were carpenter and blacksmith 
kits, and the latter included hoes, spades, sickles, 
scythes, shovels and pitchforks. The tools were 
generally without handles, to save space. On ar- 
rival in America, one of the first undertakings was 
the making of tool handles. The cargo included, 
too, nets, fish hooks, muskets, fowling pieces, pow- 
der, shot, armor, swords, cutlasses and daggers ; also 
they were provided with cannon — at least six pieces. 
Two were ten feet long and of about three and 
one-half inch bore, and weighed nearly a ton each; 
the others were somewhat smaller. They carried 
as well a "stock of trading goods" for barter with 
the Indians. Among these were knives, beads, mir- 
rors, cotton cloth, blankets, fish hooks, "strong 
waters," hatchets and articles for personal adorn- 
ment. Doubtless they were prepared both with the 
materials and the determination to carry out their 
agreement with the adventurers. 

In the latter part of November they came in sight 
of Cape Cod. Then they took a southerly course, 
hoping to sail along the coast to the Hudson River 
region. Captain Jones, though he probably pos- 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



sessed charts, made by the many explorers of this 
region, did not keep to the deep water course but 
took the ship among the shoals off Monomoy. After 
some difficulty, he put back for Cape Cod Bay. 

The season was late, and apparently there was 
no practical alternative to landing upon the New 
England coast. Some of the passengers were dis- 
satisfied with the abandonment of the plan to pro- 
ceed. With this as the immediately inducing cause, 
the famous Compact was made which is now known 
as one of the great charters of human liberty. How 
often it is that through dissatisfaction is advance- 
ment made, and how, too, the complaints of a few, 
whether just or unjust, are helpful to the many! 

What a scene was presented by this meeting of 
the adult male passengers in the cabin of the May- 
flower! Here they covenanted "to combine our- 
selves together into a civill body politick for our 
better ordering and preservation," and also agreed 
"to enacte, constitute, and frame such just and 
equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions and 
offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most 
meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye 
Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission 
and obedience." Here were not scholars or stu- 
dents of institutions; here was no delving into the 
ruins of the past to find the materials upon which 
to found solid governments. This was the concep- 
tion of artisans and workmen — of a few farmers, 
weavers, coopers, merchants, carpenters, black- 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



smiths and others who worked with their hands. 
From the caverns of their brains came that most 
sound and natural thought that among themselves 
would they frame and enact justly the laws of the 
society which they constituted. To the laws thus 
made they promised obedience. The compact 
signed, they elected John Carver their Governor for 
one year, and, shortly after, came to anchor in what 
is now known as Provincetown harbor, Cape Cod. 
A party then went ashore for wood. On the follow- 
ing day, Sunday, services were held aboard ship. 

On Monday, the shallop was hauled ashore and 
repairs on it were begun. Many on this day went 
ashore. Two days later an exploring party, under 
the leadership of Captain Miles Standish, the only 
professional soldier of their number, landed. They 
proceeded southward upon the Cape as far as Pamet 
River. They saw some Indians. After two days' 
absence, the explorers returned with a supply of 
Indian corn, which they had taken from a cache. 

On December 7, the shallop being ready, thirty- 
four of the party, including Captain Jones and some 
of the crew, went forth to explore. Upon their trip 
they visited the cache of corn and took about ten 
bushels — all that remained — and some beans for 
use as seed the following spring. About six months 
later they repaid to the Indians this enforced loan. 
On the sixteenth of the month, eighteen of the men, 
six of whom were of the officers or crew of the ship, 
proceeded in the shallop upon an extended explora- 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



tion for a site for settlement. Two days later they 
were attacked by thirty or forty Indians, but no 
casualties ensued. On Monday, December 21, this 
exploring party at Plymouth "sounded the harbor 
and found it fit for shipping." They went ashore. 
This is the specific event that is celebrated as the 
"Landing of the Pilgrims." They found old Indian 
cornfields and springs — this determined the spot as 
suitable. They returned across Cape Cod bay to 
the ship, which was sailed into Plymouth Harbor 
on Saturday, December 26. On Monday, the 28th, 
they made a further examination of the neighbor- 
ing land, and, following a few stormy days, com- 
menced, on January 2, 1621, to cut timber for their 
houses. From then until spring they were engaged 
in making their homes, most of the company living, 
meanwhile, on shipboard. Under exposure to the 
New England winter, and because of the scurvy, 
many died. Bradford, in his history, says: "Of the 
hundred and odd persons, scarce fifty remained, and 
of these, in the time of most distress, there were but 
six or seven sound persons, who spared no pains, 
night nor day, but with abundance of toil and 
hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, 
made them fires, dressed their meat, made their 
beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and 
unclothed them — in a word, did all the homely and 
necessary offices for them which dainty and quesie 
stomachs cannot endure to hear named ; and all this 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



willingly and cheerfully without any grudging in 
the least." 

Under such difficulties as these, in the dead of 
winter, on a bleak coast, did the sturdy little band 
of men, women and children plant the colony which 
was to spread and grow until generations of their 
own kind had made their way over three thousand 
miles of mountains and plains to the shores of the 
Pacific. 

On March 26, down the single street of the little 
village stalked a lone Indian. To the astonishment 
of the settlers, and in the English tongue, he uttered 
the word "Welcome." He told them his name — 
Samoset. From him much information was gained 
concerning the Indian tribes. From him they 
learned, too, that four years previous all the Indians 
at Plymouth — or Patuxet, as the redmen knew it — 
had died of a plague. His knowledge of English 
had been gathered from the crew of English vessels 
fishing along the coast of Maine. 

On April i, Samoset came again, accompanied by 
Squanto, an Indian who had lived for a time in 
England at the home of John Slany, a merchant. 
Squanto was more proficient in English than was 
Samoset, and became the interpreter for the Colony. 
Through him the Pilgrims became acquainted with 
Massasoit, the Sagamore of the Wampanoags. With 
him a treaty was made. It provided principally 
that he and his should do no injury, but if injury 
was done, the offender should be turned over for 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



punishment; that anything taken by either party 
from the other should be restored; that if either 
party was unjustly warred upon, the other should 
give aid. For over half a century this treaty was 
strictly kept by both sides. It was broken in 1675 
by Massasoit's successor, Philip. 

Squanto was of great service to the Pilgrims. He 
taught them to fertilize their cornfields by putting a 
few herring in each hill. 

Bradford's History relates, in reference to Squan- 
to : "He directed them how to set their corn, where 
to take fish, and to procure other commodities, and 
was also their pilot to bring them to unknown places 
for their profit, and never left them till he died." 

Welcomed by the red men, aided by them and 
living in peace with them for over fifty years 
augured well for the security of the New England 
settlers. The time was to come, however, when, 
instead of the voice of friendly greeting would be 
heard the piercing, savage war cry; when, instead 
of helpful instruction, would be seen, in the lurid 
glare of the burning cabin, the fatal gleam of the 
tomahawk and the vengeful flash of the scalping 
knife ; when, in place of the white belt of the peace 
treaty, there should be yielded to the white man 
the red wampum which signified terrible war. 

On April 15, the Mayflower departed for Eng- 
land. As she sailed away, uncomfortable though 
she had been, and perilous the outward journey, 
doubtless it was with a feeling of regret that the 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



watchers on shore saw her masts fade below the 
horizon. She never came again, but other ships did. 
The first of many vessels to follow the Mayflower's 
voyage was the Fortune. This tiny craft anchored 
in Plymouth Bay November 19, 1621. Her pas- 
sengers numbered thirty-five. A letter written by 
Edward Winslow was sent back by her, in which 
h"e said: "In this little time that a few of us have 
been here, we have built seven dwelling houses and 
four for the use of the plantation, and have made 
preparation for divers others. We set the last 
spring some twenty acres of Indian corn and sowed 
some six acres of barley and peas. Our corn did 
prove well, and, God be praised, we had a good 
increase of Indian corn." 

When the harvest was gathered in the fall of 
1 62 1, the first Thanksgiving was held. A great feast 
was provided. Venison, wild turkey, wild duck and 
wild fowl of several other kinds were in great plen- 
titude. Many Indians attended. A very interest- 
ing painting of the scene hangs in Pilgrim Hall. 

The Rock at Plymouth, the old burying-ground, 
the bay, Clark's Island, the monument and the col- 
lection at Pilgrim Hall bring to mind incident after 
incident in the story of this first New England set- 
tlement. Who can look upon the sword of Miles 
Standish, Persian made, of meteoric iron, without 
feeling a closer acquaintance with him whose hand 
once so confidently grasped it? The fragment of 
a Pilgrim's hoe tells its story, one oft repeated by 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



the American pioneers in their westward march, 
of the struggle to plant and grow crops without 
plows, or harrows, or similar implements, or the 
animals to draw them. Here the story of Priscilla 
Mullins, of John Alden and "The Courtship of 
Miles Standish" comes more appealingly to the 
memory than ever before. Figure after figure in the 
great drama played by the little company that once 
came from overseas, here to lead useful lives, pass 
in review. We see their honest faces — earnest, but 
not austere or cold. We hear them talk of their 
God — not as a distant mystery freighted with awful 
possibilities for them, but as an ever-present force, 
friendly and kind. We see them at their work im- 
proving their shelter, weaving the materials for their 
clothing and tilling the grudging soil for the crops. 
We go with them to sea and watch them haul in 
their catch. With light fowling pieces we tramp 
with them to marshes or venture upon the bays 
where wild fowl are plentiful and unscared. Upon 
the hills we find the great wild turkeys, their 
bronzed plumage brilliant in the autumn sun. In 
the copses the red deer run. We see them far re- 
moved from authority except their own, recogniz- 
ing that wherever a group of humans is gathered 
rules of conduct must be established and observed. 
How simply and naturally the democratic idea takes 
hold ! How logically they provide the machinery of 
government! We see institutions in their begin- 
nings and realize that from this simple but effec- 



PLYMOUTH ROCK 



tive inception came at last the Constitution of the 
United States. They were just plain folks, folks 
that suffered, loved, struggled, enjoyed, thought and 
toiled. Centuries have passed since their animated 
bodies became dust, and monuments to them have 
value only for the living. None can be so sufficient, 
or so suggestive, of the Mayflower Pilgrims as the 
simple stone, which to all the earth is known as 
"Plymouth Rock." 




UK NATHAN HALK STATUK, KRKCTKl) WV IIIK SOCIKTV 
OF THE SONS OF THK RFAOLUTION. Cl\\ IIAI.I. 
PARK, NKW YORK. NO\FMI!FR _'5. IS93 



The story of Nathan Hale is one of 
unmurmuring devotion to duty. 



Nathan Hale 



"But his last words, his message-words. 
They burn, lest friendly eye 
Should read how proud and calm 

A patriot could die, 
With his last words, his dying words, 
A soldier's battle-cry," 

— Francis Miles Finch. 

ONE of the great virtues that Americans have 
ever displayed is courage. Each epoch in the 
history of the continent has its heroes. How daunt- 
less was Leif Ericson in buffeting his way to Vin- 
land! What intrepidity Columbus showed in his 
westward sailing! How adventurous were all the 
explorers ! The bravery of the men and women who 
made the early settlements was supreme. The 
threadings of the American wilds could have been 
made only by those whom fear could not weaken 
or overcome. In peace and in strife Americans have 
never been daunted by inherent timidity. Our his- 
tory is replete with names whose mention suggests 
that high heroism that through all the ages has been 
admired. 

Every school-boy is thrilled by the story of De- 
catur at Tripoli, by the tale of Boone's perilous 
wanderings in the Kentucky woodlands, by the re- 
counting of Kenton's escapes from the savage 
gauntlets and the stake, by the story of Crockett 
at the Alamo, and of Carson, Fremont, Lewis, 



NATHAN HALE 



Clark and Cody on the plains and in the mountains 
of the West. How much courageous character is 
suggested by the names of Washington, Stark, 
Green, Allen, Morgan, Lee, Jackson, Grant, Custer 
and thousands of others who have lived as true 
Americans. 

Of all the stories of the heroic in American life, 
none is more touching than that of Nathan Hale. 
A statue of him is erected on the campus of his alma 
mater, its bronze silence speaking eloquently to 
the generations of Yale students who have paused 
before it. In City Hall Park, New York, is another 
statue of him, standing as he stood in his last mo- 
ments. The garb is that of a school-master; his 
arms and ankles are bound; his neck is bared for 
the noose which the inhuman Cunningham has pre- 
pared. It was here on this island of Manahatta 
that Nathan Hale, by means that generally are for 
the ignominious, gloriously died. 

He was a spy, but a spy in a great cause. He was 
a soldier, the soldier of a worthy country. He was 
obeying the instructions of his General, George 
Washington, of the Continental Army. 

Nathan Hale was born in Connecticut in 1755. 
Of his youth little is known except that he was a 
handsome, winning boy of considerable athletic 
prowess. He entered Yale College. Upon gradua- 
tion he taught school at New London, preparatory 
to entering the ministry. Then came the news of 
the "embattled farmers" at Concord and Lexington. 



NATHAN HALE 



At once he enlisted. He was a lieutenant at the 
siege of Boston, and soon afterwards was promoted 
to a captaincy. 

After the British evacuation of Boston he went 
with Washington's army to New York. Then came 
the defeat at Long Island, the narrow escape of the 
American forces and the withdrawal to Harlem 
Heights. General Washington, with his army de- 
pleted to less than fifteen hundred men, and almost 
overwhelmed by disasters, was facing Lord Howe's 
highly-trained force, numbering about twenty-five 
thousand. The American commander felt it impera- 
tive to know the stations of the enemy troops, their 
numbers, their equipment and their plans. Though 
a desperate adventure, to send a spy through the 
British lines offered the only chance. Those who 
were thought to possess sufficient courage were 
sought. All declined until request was made of 
Captain Hale. 

Proofs of his daring were not wanting. Once he 
had led a few companions in an enterprise of great 
risk. In a rov%7boat under cover of night they had 
made way to a British vessel, boarded it, imprisoned 
the crew and under the guns of an enemy man-of- 
war had brought it to wharf. 

Washington personally gave Hale the instruc- 
tions for his dangerous mission. From Harlem 
Heights he journeyed to Norwalk, where he ex- 
changed his uniform for the habiliments of a school- 
master. One night a vessel took him across Long 



NATHAN HALE 



Island Sound to Huntington Bay, where he entered 
the lines of the enemy. For two weeks he carefully 
gathered information in the British camps in and 
about Brooklyn and in New York. When done, he 
made his way back to Huntington. Here his char- 
acter was discovered and his capture effected. The 
manner of his undoing is not known with certainty. 
It is thought that a relation of Tory affiliations made 
disclosure to a British naval officer. The spy 
walked to the water's edge, hoping to find a friendly 
boat. One approached, but when near up rose sev- 
eral enemy marines. Covered by their guns, he em- 
barked. The officer in command took him to the 
man-of-war Halifax, where he was searched. Con- 
victing sketches, plans and memoranda were dis- 
covered in his shoes. He was conveyed to New 
York City and taken before Lord Howe. 

The American captain admitted his identity and 
his mission. The only regret expressed by him was 
his failure to report to his General. 

Lord Howe sentenced the prisoner to be hanged 
the next morning, September 22, 1776. His jailer 
and executioner was William Cunningham, the 
Provost-Marshal of the British army in New York. 
Hale asked for pen, paper and a Bible. These were 
refused; later in the night, however, an officer of 
the guard procured them. Two letters were written, 
one to his mother and one to his betrothed. Their 
contents no one knows. From such a man, doubt- 
less they were final messages of consolation, cour- 



NATHAN HALE 



age and love. As day came, Cunningham entered 
the prison cell. The condemned man handed him 
the two letters for delivery, but the brutal officer 
tore them to bits. The William Cunningham who 
did this, who refused to unloose the bound arms of 
his prisoner, who caused the unnecessary agonies of 
the captured colonists who came to his keeping and 
the horrors of the Sugar House prison, himself was 
later — unwept and dishonored — hung for his crimes. 

As Nathan Hale stood that September morning 
unhesitatingly ready to pay the price which the 
rules of war demanded, the scoffing Cunningham, 
in placing the rope, asked him to make his dying 
confession. Then this young patriot uttered those 
words that all Americans ever since have known: 
"My only regret is that I have but one life to give 
for my country." 

He was buried in New York City — where, no one 
knows. His dust has long since mingled with the 
native soil. His spirit still lives wherever pulses 
the heroic blood of America. 




STAl'll-; Ol' KKI) JACKKI' Al ItL'F 1"AL(), X. V. 



The advance of American pioneers 
was made against the craftiest and 
ablest savages the world has ever 
known. 



Red Jacket 

"Oh, chequered train of years, farewell! 

With all thy strifes and hopes and fears! 
Yet with us let thy memories dwell. 

To warn and teach the coming years. 

"And thou, the new-beginning age. 
Warned by the past, and not in vain. 

Write on a fsiirer, whiter page, 
The record of thy happier reign." 

—William Cullen Bryant. 

ONE July morning in 1609, a band of sixty Al- 
gonquin and Huron Indians landed from their 
canoes where the promontory of Ticonderoga, or 
"meeting of waters," reaches into "Lake Iroquois" 
(as Lake Champlain was then called). After a 
night of hideous taunts and savage threats, they 
hurried to the attack of nearly two himdred Mo- 
hawk warriors. The weapons were the arrows and 
spears of the Stone Age. Appalled by the numbers 
of their opponents, the assailants called for help. 
From beneath the furs that covered them as they 
lay in canoes along the shore, three white men arose. 
Astonished by the presence of seemingly super- 
natural beings, the Mohawks paused. As they 
poised their arrows to shoot, two of the white men 
lifted their strange weapons. When the bell-shaped 
mouths belched forth their terrifying thunder, two 
Mohawk chiefs fell dead and a third was wounded. 
Little did Champlain, the romantic French ex- 



RED JACKET 



plorer, know that his rashness would profoundly 
affect the history of the American continent. 

The Mohawks were the most easterly tribe of the 
Iroquois Confederacy. Before the coming of white 
men the Iroquois had lived north of the St. Law- 
rence. Hochelega, the site of Montreal, was once 
one of their towns. By the fierce Adirondacks, a 
tribe of the Algonquin peoples, they had been driven 
southward to what is now the State of New York. 
Here they finally divided into five tribes, named 
the Senecas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, the 
Oneidas and the Mohawks. The confederacy that 
they then formed is one of the most remarkable 
political organizations in the story of red men. 
They sought to induce their kin, the Hurons, some 
of the Eries and others of Iroquoian stock to join. 
None did, except the Tuscaroras; the rest, as well 
as the much more numerous Algonquins, composed 
of scores of great tribes, the Iroquois ever held in 
enmity. 

It is supposed that the migration from Canada to 
New York occurred about 1350, that about a cen- 
tury later the confederacy was established, and that 
the Five Nations were joined by the Tuscaroras 
about 1712. The country that they inhabited 
stretched from the eastern end of Lake Erie to the 
valley of the Hudson. This territory was spoken 
of as the "Long House." The Onondagas were 
called the "Fathers of the Confederacy." At their 
principal village, not far from where Syracuse, New 



RED JACKET 



York, now is, the great council house was main- 
tained, and in it the council fire was ever burning. 
The Mohawks were known as the "Eldest Brother," 
and the guardians of the eastern gate of the "Long 
House." The Oneidas were the "Heads" ; the Cayu- 
gas, the "Youngest Brother" ; and the Senecas, the 
"Watchmen of the Western Gate." The traditions 
of the origin of the "United People," as the Iroquois 
translated their confederate name, and the form and 
workings of their government are worthy of de- 
tailed study. It is here remarkable that, greatly 
outnumbered as they were by their Indian enemies, 
never were they overcome by other red men. 

Champlain's killing of the two Mohawk chiefs 
gained for the French the deep enmity of the con- 
federacy. While the Iroquois nation did not, on 
the coming of the white men, exceed twelve thou- 
sand souls, for a century and a half they held the 
arms of the French at bay. Because of their con- 
trol of Lake Erie, the French missionaries, soldiers, 
traders and voyageurs on their westward journey 
were obliged to travel up the Ottawa River, and 
by the various water routes and portages make way 
to Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. By the Iro- 
quois, more southerly routes and posts were denied 
the French. The Dutch and the English, as their 
successors, who gained the friendship of this most 
powerful association of Indians on the continent, 
ultimately achieved supremacy in the westward 



RED JACKET 



march along the southern shores of the Great Lakes 
and in the valley of the Ohio. 

A people who could so vitally affect a continent's 
story must have had able leaders. Most of their 
principal men were great warriors. One of them, 
not famous as a warrior, never having won the right 
to wear the Eagle's feather, gained the sachemship 
of his people thru the power of his eloquence. Even 
among savages is the art of persuasion useful. 
Especially was this true of the Seneca Sagoyewatha, 
or, as he is better known. Red Jacket. 

The American Indians produced many great ora- 
tors. The imagery of men who live close to nature 
always appeals. But words and imagery are not 
the principal stuff of which orations are made. The 
orator must have a theme — one that is fed from his 
very soul, if he would speak with authority. This 
Red Jacket had. It was his implacable opposition 
to the civilization, the religion and the westward 
advance of white men. For his and future genera- 
tions of red men he pleaded. The preservation of 
the Indian's home and his hunting grounds, as the 
Great Spirit had given them, was the theme that 
called up his greatest powers. Once he said: "We 
stand a small island in the bosom of the Great 
Waters. We are encircled. We are encompassed. 
The evil spirit rides upon the blast, and the waters 
are disturbed. They rise, they press upon us, and, 
the waves once settled over us, we disappear for- 
ever. Who then lives to mourn us? No one. What 



RED JACKET 



marks our extermination? Nothing. We are min- 
gled with the common elements." 

Sagoyewatha probably is the only great Indian 
leader who owed his sachemship entirely to his ora- 
torical abilities. He was born on Seneca Lake, New 
York, in 1751, and named O-te-ti-ani, or "Always 
Ready." On coming to the sachemship, he was 
christened Sagoyewatha, which means, "He keeps 
them awake." In his youth he learned to track and 
to hunt. He was taught to observe and to reason. 
The bruise on a leaf, the bending of a twig, a dis- 
turbance in the moss or dust, and the thousands of 
things that to the untrained go unobserved, or are 
meaningless, to him, as to all Indians, told how, 
what, when, who, where and why. That white men 
could likewise develop their powers of observation 
in the wilderness is shown by Boone, who for years 
lived in "the dark and bloody ground" woodlands, 
depending for life upon his alertness and skill. 
Simon Kenton, whose life was one of the most ro- 
mantic of the western pioneers, avoided or met 
successfully thousands of dangers through the use 
of the craft which was the Indian's educational cur- 
riculum. Then there were the Seviers, Robertsons, 
Steiners, Wetzels, Manskers and many other In- 
dian fighters who lived where every bush had its 
threat of death, every tree lifted a possible shield for 
a savage enemy, and the pleasant sounds of the 
woodland might be the deceptive calls of skulking 
foes. 



RED JACKET 



In the veins of Sagoyewatha ran no chieftain's 
blood. His birth was lowly, even among the In- 
dians. Fortunately, the red men recognized no roy- 
alty except that of performance; birth bestowed 
no honors except that greatest of all honors, an 
equal opportunity to succeed through effort. 

As a young man he was fleet of foot. Among 
his people he was often employed as a runner to 
carry intelligence, which perhaps at times took him 
to the Great Council House in the land of the Onon- 
dagas. In the war of the American Revolution he 
served on the border as runner for British officers. 
By one of these he was given a scarlet jacket. He 
wore this, and a succession of others similar, 
throughout his life. From this circumstance he 
acquired the name by which he was most commonly 
known, "Red Jacket." 

Though early taught the Indian's art of warfare, 
the first record of his appearance as a warrior is 
connected with the successful American invasion, 
under General Sullivan, of the Cayuga and Seneca 
country in 1779. Brant, the great Mohawk chief, 
charged Red Jacket with counselling the warriors 
to sue for an unfavorable peace. When the Seneca 
warrior Cornplanter determined to meet and fight 
General Sullivan's troops on the banks of Canan- 
daigua Lake, some of the Indians, including Red 
Jacket, commenced a retreat. Cornplanter tried to 
prevent this withdrawal. His efforts to induce Red 
Jacket to fight were fruitless, and he charged the 



RED JACKET 



latter with cowardice. It is probable that the 
charge was true. Like the Roman orator Cicero, 
Red Jacket could persuade others to fight, but could 
not himself overcome the temptation to flee. 

We next see Red Jacket at what is now Rome, 
New York, where the Indian treaty of Fort Stamoix 
was signed in 1784. Following the peace treaty of 
1783 between Great Britain and the United States, 
the white settlers in New York, who had suffered 
much from Indian cruelties, demanded the expul- 
sion of the Iroquois. Generals Washington and 
Schuyler opposed this extremity and advised that 
the friendship of these Indians, who had been mis- 
led by the British officers, should be won back by 
liberal treatment. To this end a council of the 
Chiefs of the Iroquois confederacy was held at Fort 
Stanwix. The principal representatives of the Six 
Nations were Cornplanter and Red Jacket. The 
United States was represented by three Commis- 
sioners. By this treaty the Indians surrendered 
much of the territory they had occupied in New 
York, retaining for themselves considerable strips 
of forest. The story of the further surrender of 
Indian land within a few years following is inter- 
esting in this, that opponent though he was of the 
white advance, on each purchase made of Seneca 
ground the name of Sagoyewatha appears upon the 
deed. 

Red Jacket was an unusual Indian, in that he 
lacked in physical bravery. He became a sachem 



RED JACKET 



through his oratorical abilities. All Indians loved 
eloquence, and the Iroquois more than others. Be- 
cause of this and his high intellectual powers his 
cowardice seems to have been overlooked. He has 
been called a demagogue; it is likely he was. He 
has been charged with treachery; perhaps the 
charge was true. Being overwhelmed by a superior 
race, he finally yielded in the sale of Indian lands. 
It is certain that in his inmost heart he felt that 
the white man's ways were not for the Indian ; that 
the white man's religion should not supplant the 
Indian's, and that the forests and valleys teeming 
with game were intended by the Great Spirit for 
the Indian's possession, unchanged, forever. He 
saw his dreams fading, and with each season's dim- 
ming there crept into his soul a despair from which 
an eloquence can spring, as appealing as the elo- 
quence of strife. The story of his life, of his many 
speeches, his negotiations with United States Com- 
missioners, his trips to Philadelphia and to Wash- 
ington, his service to the United States in the war 
of 1812, his meeting with LaFayette, his constant 
proud wearing of the silver medal given him by 
George Washington, his vanities, his personal 
charm, his drunkenness in later years, his removal 
from his chieftainship, his restoration, his despair 
and his death in 1830, is filled with interest. To 
recount these is not the purpose of this essay. 

All who ever listened to him called him one of the 
greatest of orators. His speeches were made in his 



RED JACKET 



native tongue; such as have been preserved have 
come to us through interpreters, and in translation 
perhaps they have lost some of their original power. 
Certainly they have lost the commanding presence, 
the proud bearing, the flashing eye and the expres- 
sive face and body of the orator. Thus handicapped, 
read these sentences: 

"There was a time when our forefathers owned 
this great island. Their seats extended from the 
rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had 
made it for the use of Indians. He had created the 
buffalo, the deer and other animals for food. He 
had made the bear and the beaver. Their skins 
served us for clothing. He had scattered them over 
the country and taught us how to take them. He 
had caused the earth to produce com for bread. 
All this he had done for his red children, because 
he loved them. If we had some disputes about our 
hunting ground, they were generally settled with- 
out the shedding of much blood. But an evil day 
came upon us. Your forefathers crossed the great 
water and landed on this island. Their numbers 
were small. They found friends, and not enemies. 
They told us they had fled from their own country 
for fear of wicked men and had come here to enjoy 
their religion. They asked for a small seat. We 
took pity on them, granted their request, and they 
sat down amongst us. We gave them corn and 
meat. They gave us poison in return. 

"The white people. Brother, had now found our 



RED JACKET 



country. Tidings were carried back, and more came 
amongst us. Yet we did not fear them. We took 
them to be friends. They called us brothers. We 
believed them and gave them a larger seat. At 
length their numbers had greatly increased. They 
wanted more land. They wanted our country. Our 
eyes were opened and our minds became uneasy. 
Wars took place. Indians were hired to fight 
against Indians, and many of our people were 
destroyed. They also brought strong liquor 
amongst us. It was strong and powerful, and has 
slain thousands. 

"Our seats were once large, and yours were small. 
You have now become a great people, and we have 
scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You 
have got our country, but are not satisfied ; you want 
to force your religion upon us. 

"Brother, continue to listen. You say you are 
sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit 
agreeably to his mind ; and, if we do not take hold 
of the religion which you white people teach we 
shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are 
right and we are lost. How do we know this to be 
true? We understand that your religion is written 
in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, 
why has not the Great Spirit given to us, and not 
only to us, but why did he not give to our fore- 
fathers, the knowledge of that book, with the means 
of understanding it rightly? We only know what 
you tell us about it. How shall we know when to 



RED JACKET 



believe, being so often deceived by the white peo- 
ple? 

"You say there is but one way to worship and 
serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, 
why do you white people differ so much about it? 
Why not all agree as you can all read the book? 

"Brother, we do not understand these things. We 
are told that your religion was given to your fore- 
fathers and has been handed down from father to 
son. We also have a religion which was given to 
our forefathers and has been handed down to us, 
their children. We worship in that way. It teaches 
us to be thankful for all the favors we receive, to 
love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel 
about religion. 

"The Great Spirit has made us all, but he has 
made a great difference between his white and red 
children. He has given us different complexions 
and different customs. To you he has given the 
arts. To these he has not opened our eyes. We 
know these things to be true. Since he has made 
so great a difference between us in other things, 
why may we not conclude that he has given us a 
different religion according to our understanding? 
The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is 
best for his children. We are satisfied. 

"Brother, we do not wish to destroy your reli- 
gion, or take it from you. We only want to enjoy 
our own. 

"We are told that you have been preaching to the 



RED JACKET 



white people in this place. These people are our 
neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will 
wait a little while and see what effect your preach- 
ing has upon them. If we find it does them good, 
makes them honest and less disposed to cheat In- 
dians, we will then consider again of what you have 
said." 

These able and eloquent observations were made 
by Red Jacket at Buffalo Creek in 1805, in response 
to a missionary who was planning a station among 
the Senecas. The questions of the Indian should 
have been answered. The missionary did not try. 

On another similar occasion Red Jacket said: 
"We do not worship the Great Spirit as the white 
men do, but we believe that forms of worship are 
indifferent to the Great Spirit; it is the offering of 
a sincere heart that pleases him, and we worship 
him in this manner." 

A student of Red Jacket's life is struck with the 
thought that even a savage bereft of most of the 
qualities that make a savage great was able, through 
the keenness of his desire to become an orator, to 
so succeed that his abilities in the line of his choice 
placed him at the head of the greatest Indian gov- 
ernment this Continent has known. An American 
may appropriately ask himself if the principal sub- 
ject of Red Jacket's eloquence — opposition to the 
Westward advance of the whites — was morally well 
grounded. Whatever his answer may be, it must 
be accompanied by pity for the aborigines of this 



RED JACKET 



Continent. That natural pity will not, however, 
wipe from the imagination of one who knows his 
country's history the scenes of horror that often 
steeled the American pioneer against those who 
opposed his Westward way. In page after page of 
American annals, we see painted warriors skulking 
near the edge of the clearing waiting to glut their 
savage vengeance upon the lone settler and his fam- 
ily. When night falls, the tomahawk gleams in the 
light of the cabin's flame. The morning reveals the 
charred ruins of a home and the scalpless corpses 
of its occupants. 

In the broad forests every glory of nature sug- 
gests a hidden foe waiting to deal his sudden death 
to the struggling traveler. We see the quick raids 
on the small settlement, the stout defense, and 
sometimes its breaking before the fierce horde. 
Then comes the swift slaying, the gory scalping 
knife and the taking of women to worse than death. 

Again we can see captives on their weary marches 
to the Indian villages, the merciless running of the 
gauntlet, the tortures indescribable, and the burn- 
ing at the stake amid the horrid dance of demons 
and fiendish laughter. Cruelty unspeakable! Suf- 
fering — how terrible! 

In the darkest annals of mankind — among the 
most cunning tortures of the Inquisition — where 
can one look for a story of outrages that exceeds, 
in its ingenuity for inflicting pain, that of the as- 
saults made by Indians in the forests of the East 



RED JACKET 



and on the plains of the West upon our American 
progenitors? Where in the record of a people can 
one find a history more heroic than that of those 
men and women who, undaunted by the fiercest and 
ablest savage fighters the world has ever known, 
made the settlers' march across this great continent? 

Were the whites always kind and charitable to 
the red men? No, indeed! Sometimes they were 
grossly unjust, sometimes terrible in their punish- 
ment. Could human nature be expected to be calm 
and always fair when in the memory was seared 
forever a picture of the savage murder of parents 
or of a sweetheart or wife in the clutches of a dirty 
chieftain, or of children impaled, or of one or many 
of the thousand wrongs that white men suffered at 
the Indians' hands? 

The noble qualities that Indians sometimes dis- 
played should be remembered. The wonderful 
friendships that American annals here and there 
reveal between a red man and a white should not 
be forgotten. The acts of charity sprinkled in the 
story of this barbaric people should be preserved 
in our history. The wonderful myths of the red 
men, simple but eloquent, with their love of nature 
and their profound belief in the Great Spirit should 
be kept in memory. The passing of their earthly 
hunting grounds and the leaving only of the Happy 
one of their hereafter should not be overlooked. 
Mindful of all this we also should not forget that the 
Americans who toiled on toward the West fought 



RED JACKET 



the greatest fight against aboriginal inhabitants that 
the history of new settlements knows. 

Would anyone now wish they might have lost? 
Could anyone argue that Columbus should not have 
sailed, that Jamestown should never have been, and 
that the Pilgrims should never have landed, and 
that the whole train of consequences that have fol- 
lowed should not have followed? 

Sentimentalists may say that the Indians were 
here first, and that the continent was theirs. But 
they exercised no ownership, in the white man's 
sense of ownership. The portions of North America 
in their actual possession were small. Because they 
came here at some time long before the advent of 
white men, should the rest of the earth's population 
have forever held aloof and should the whole con- 
tinent have remained a vast wilderness? Should the 
Mississippi Valley, often asserted to be capable of 
producing enough foodstuffs to feed the entire 
earth's population, have remained a feeding ground 
for the buffalo and the exclusive habitat — save for 
its wild animals — of the few Indian tribes who 
migrated within it? 

Should the Indian have permitted the fields al- 
ways to remain fallow and the minerals of the earth 
ever to be unused? Many will say "no"; but, how- 
ever we answer, it is certain that every foot of 
American soil that any Indians ever claimed to own, 
whether they possessed it or not, whether they had 
the grant of any right to possess it or not, was 



RED JACKET 



bought, not as conquerors buy, but by purchasing 
Americans who paid therefor in full. Into the In- 
dian lands have been put generations of toil by mil- 
lions of men and women. Where the huts or 
wigwams of the Indians once stood are great cities 
teeming with useful human life. On the lakes where 
once danced his bark canoe, great vessels ply. 
Where once was heard the piercing war cry now 
rises the hum of industry and there flourish the use- 
ful arts. The Indians are scattered. Wars with 
them have long since ceased. Many of them are 
civilized. Men of Indian blood sit in the Senate 
of the United States. Even the Indians, as are 
all others, are richer, happier and better that 
through suffering and struggle the wilderness and 
deserts of America have come to blossom and yield 
vastly. 

The Indian Sagoyewatha, tutored only by the 
wilderness, who hoped that his dust would never 
be enclosed in a white man's burial place, now 
sleeps in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New 
York, among thousands of his enemies. The im- 
placable opponent of the white man's onward march 
now rests within a great city built by hands he would 
have stayed. Beside him is the dust of other great 
Indian leaders — Tall Peter, Little Billy, Captain 
Pollard, The Young King, Destroy Town and Deer- 
foot. Strange it is that beside him who thought 
that no red man could learn the ways of white men, 
are the ashes of the full blooded Seneca, General 



RED JACKET 



Ely S. Parker, who, in the Civil War served on 
the staff of General Grant. Above the dust of these 
aboriginal Americans stands a heroic bronze statue 
of Red Jacket. Its attitude is that of the orator, 
confident in himself and confident in his cause. On 
the pedestal beneath are engraven these words, 
once by him uttered: 

"When I am gone and my warnings are no 
longer heeded, the craft and avarice of the white 
man will prevail. * * * ^y heart feiils me 
when I think of my people so soon to be scattered 
and forgotten." 

Red Jacket's dreams of an everlasting wilderness 
are buried with him. The white man has prevailed, 
not through "craft and avarice," but through the 
cultivation of those virtues which are now the basis 
of our national life. 




CEOKCE ROCKKS CLARK 
(From the stutiic by Clunlcx J. Midligan. at (Jniiuy. Illinois) 



A little less than a century and a 
half ago a small band of armed fron- 
tiersmen, led by George Rogers Clark, 
took and held a territory in which is 
now the center of the population of 
the United States, How rapid was the 
westward movement when once be- 
gun! 



George Rogers Clark 

"What cordial welcomes greet the guest 
By thy lone rivers of the West; 
How faith is kept, and truth revered. 
And man is loved, and God is feared, 

In woodland homes, 
And where the ocean border foams." 

— William CuUen Bryant. 

THE old Northwest Territory, from which was 
carved the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Michigan and Wisconsin, has a most interesting 
history. About it clusters a group of names whose 
mention suggests intrepidity of soul and self sacri- 
fice. Among the earliest of these are those of Jean 
Nicollet, LaSalle, Hennepin, Radisson, Du Luth, 
Marquette, Joliet, Tonty and other missionaries and 
explorers, who, in zeal for their Church or their 
King adventured far by land and water into the 
trackless wildernesses of the continental interior. Of 
each of them many heroic tales are preserved. From 
the time of Jean Nicollet's coming to Green Bay, on 
his quest for China, until the French and Indian 
War, such ownership as white men exercised in this 
vast area was French. Upon the conclusion of that 
war, for twelve years it was English territory, a part 
of the province of Quebec. The change to American 
ownership came suddenly, in a dramatic episode, 
the chief actor in which is entitled to the profound 
thanks of the generations that have followed. 
On the evening of July 4th, 1778, the British gar- 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



rison of the fort at Kaskaskia gave a ball. The 
French Creoles of this little Illinois river settle- 
ment attended. The scene which the flaming 
torches revealed was one of backwoods gayety. In 
the midst of the revels a tall, blue-eyed stranger 
stepped quietly within the hall, and for a time 
leaned against the wall, unnoticed by the dancers. 
Calmly he stood, undisturbing and undisturbed. 
Suddenly an Indian yell rent the air. It came from 
a sharp-eyed savage who had been intently study- 
ing the bronzed face of the stranger. That single 
whoop of recognition marked the end of British 
power from the western limits of the struggling 
colonies to the Mississippi river. The stranger was 
George Rogers Clark, the bold leader of a little army 
that was then posted about the place. 

He stepped forward and bade the dance go on, 
saying that now and henceforth they danced under 
the American and not under the British flag. 

This account is published in Denny's "Memoir of 
Major Ebenezer Denny." An artist's representa- 
tion of it is found in Lodge's "Story of the Revolu- 
tion." In Clark's letter to George Mason of Vir- 
ginia, written November 19, 1779, he makes no men- 
tion of the incident of the ball, but writes of the 
taking of Kaskaskia as follows: "I immediately 
divided my little army into two Divisions, ordered 
one to secure the Town, with the other I broke into 
the Fort, secured the Governour Mr. Rockblave, in 
15 minutes had every Street secured, sent Runners 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



through the Town ordering the People on the pane 
of Death to keep close to their Houses, which they 
observed and before daylight had the whole dis- 
armed." He made a similar statement in his 
memoirs — probably written in 1791. 

Whatever the details, certain it is that the English 
Commandant was made a prisoner; no resistance 
was offered ; no blood was shed. Clark's work was 
well begun. His force of one hundred and fifty men 
invested the town. The terror of the French popu- 
lation turned to joy when the American leader of- 
fered to treat them as citizens of the United States. 

The consequences of this drama were tremendous. 
Before considering them, let us look for a moment 
at its chief actor. 

In the year 1752, in a little farm house situated 
about a mile from Monticello, Virginia, the home 
of Thomas Jefferson, George Rogers Clark was born. 
It is probable that in his youth for some months he 
and James Madison together attended the school 
of one Donald Robertson. Like many of the ambi- 
tious young men of his time, Clark became a sur- 
veyor. When nineteen years old, he journeyed 
westward on an expedition to the upper Ohio Val- 
ley. He finally built his cabin about twenty-five 
miles below Wheeling, near where Fish Creek en- 
ters the Ohio. There he grew a crop of corn, hunted, 
fished, and, as he wrote his brother Jonathan in 
1773, received "a good deal of cash by surveying 
on this river." In 1774 the conflicts between the 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



Indians and the few settlers who had ventured into 
the hunting grounds of Kentucky culminated in 
Lord Dunmore's War. In this Clark served under 
the famous Indian fighter and pioneer, Col. Cresap. 
In 1776 he went to Kentucky. A meeting of set- 
tlers hefd at Harrodsburg in June of that year chose 
Clark and one John Gabriel Jones to represent them 
in the Virginia legislature then in session at Wil- 
liamsburg. The two delegates made their way 
through Cumberland Gap over Boone's Wilderness 
Road to Williamsburg, arriving after the legisla- 
ture's adjournment. Through Governor Patrick 
Henry, Clark secured from the Executive Council 
of Virginia, for the Kentucky inhabitants, five hun- 
dred pounds of powder, which was delivered at 
Pittsburg. Thence it was taken down the Ohio 
River probably to a point near Manchester, Ohio, 
and hidden to await the gathering of a sufficient 
force to carry it to interior Kentucky points. While 
Clark was pushing on to Harrodsburg for this pur- 
pose, a Col. Todd arrived and provided Jones an 
escort. On their way from Licking Creek to the 
powder caches they were attacked and routed by 
Indians, Jones and two others being killed and 
several taken prisoners. From Harrodsburg, thirty 
men, among them Simon Kenton, started for the 
powder on January 2, 1777. They successfully ob- 
tained it. Small as this supply now seems, its im- 
portance was tremendous. Without this ammuni- 
tion, it is probable that in the Indian border war- 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



fare the Kentucky pioneers could not have survived. 
In the French villages north of the Ohio, and 
then under British domination, the red men were 
frequently incited to gather their war parties for 
forays against the sparse Kentucky settlements. 
Clark determined to march against these principal 
posts. With such slight help as Patrick Henry, 
Virginia's Governor, could give Clark was enabled 
to equip a small army of pioneer riflemen for the 
audacious project. Under severe difficulties this 
band proceeded down the Ohio to its falls. Here 
Clark, with huts of logs, made the small beginnings 
of what afterward became Louisville, Kentucky. 
From Louisville, so named in honor of the French 
king with whom the American alliance had just 
been made, they marched first through forests and 
then over prairies, where buffalo still roamed. They 
traveled by night and hid by day, for the Indian 
allies of the British were abroad. Here no bands 
played — no fifes shrilled — no drums beat — no proud 
chargers pranced — no artillery rattled. There were 
none of the usual accompaniments of an invading 
army. At the head of the dauntless invaders the 
leader walked silently — a handsome youth was he, 
blue-eyed and with red-tinged hair. He was six feet 
tall, of powerful frame and fit in body and in mind 
to lead his rough unlettered followers. Most of them 
wore the usual seam-fringed buckskin leggins ; their 
feet were moccasined. From shoulder to knee hung 
the long rudely ornamented and belted hunting shirt 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



of deerskin. Their accouterments were a pouch for 
food and ammunition, a powder horn, a tomahawk, 
a scalping knife and a long barreled, small-bored 
flint-lock rifle. As the Kaskaskia garrison outnum- 
bered the Americans, surprise tactics were required. 
On the afternoon of the second anniversary of the 
Declaration of Independence they waited in the 
woods beyond the outskirts of the village. Under 
cover of darkness they surrounded it. Then came 
the bloodless victory. The officers were captured, 
the garrison and townspeople disarmed, and by 
nightfall of July 5 the inhabitants had taken the oath 
of allegiance to the new Republic. 

A Catholic priest, Pierre Gibault, asked if the 
church could be opened. Clark made reply that he 
had nothing to do with any church, save to defend 
it from insult. 

A part of Clark's force then marched on Cahokia. 
The news of the events at Kaskaskia had preceded 
them. At Cahokia the French Creoles became 
friendly to the Americans. The Indians, however, 
could not understand this sudden change of senti- 
ment. In an effort to understand it, they came 
from far off. Representatives of all the tribes be- 
tween the Mississippi and the Great Lakes gathered 
in great numbers at Cahokia. 

There were many pow-wows. Some of the 
warriors tried to capture Clark. He acted prompt- 
ly and decisively, and made the small group of of- 
fending redmen prisoners. Then calling a council 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



meeting in true Indian form, he released his prison- 
ers. At the sullen gathering he offered a war belt 
to the savages. By his defiance and his eloquence, 
and through his intimate understanding of Indian 
character, the meeting closed in the acceptance by 
the warriors of a white belt and the making of a 
treaty of peace. 

Hamilton, the British commandant at Detroit, 
had taken Vincennes, Indiana. Thence, in Febru- 
ary, 1778, at the head of 170 men, many of them 
French Creoles, drilled by the invading pioneers at 
Kaskaskia, went the redoubtable Clark. Through 
wet river bottoms and over prairies they struggled. 
They lived well on buffalo meat, bear, venison and 
turkey until they neared Vincennes. Then food be- 
came scarce and the way hard. The garrison at 
Vincennes — British, Indians and French — outnum- 
bered Clark's command four to one. To the Creole 
citizens of Vincennes he addressed the following 
letter : 

"Gentlemen: Being now within two miles of 
your village with my army, determined to take 
your Fort this night, and not being willing to sur- 
prize you, I take this method to request such of 
you as are true citizens, and willing to enjoy the 
liberty I bring you, to remain still in your houses. 
And those, if any there be, that are friends to 
the King, will instantly repair to the fort, and 
join the HAIR-BUYER GENERAL, and fight 
like men. And if any such, as do not go to the 
Fort shall be discovered afterwards, they may 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



depend on severe punishment. On the contrary, 
those that are true friends to liberty, may de- 
pend on being well treated. And I once more 
request them to keep out of the streets; for 
every one I find in arms on my arrival, I shall 
treat as an enemy." 

It was read in the public square. As the sun was 
setting, the invading force marched up the street to 
the cheers of the mercurial inhabitants. When night 
fell, Clark attacked the fort. Until morning the 
siege lasted. Then came a pause while the Ameri- 
cans demanded of the "Hair Buyer," as they called 
the Indian incitor, Col. Hamilton, the unconditional 
surrender of his force. This was refused. The at- 
tack was continued. Soon the expertness of the 
American riflemen made the cannoneers leave their 
port holes. In the afternoon the English capitulated 
and the following morning the American flag was 
flying over Vincennes. Without artillery, against 
trained soldiers protected by a stockade fort and 
provided with cannon, the backwoodsmen with their 
long-barreled small-bore rifles had conquered. With 
American garrisons in Vincennes, Kaskaskia and 
Cahokia, the West was in actual occupation by the 
little Revolutionary army. For his sacrifices Clark's 
only timely reward was a sword presented by the 
legislature of Virginia. The consequence of his 
daring was that the vast country between the Alle- 
ghanies and the Mississippi was made American. 
In the treaty of peace which closed the Revolution, 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



the British recognized the American title, a title 
gained by the conquering force of George Rogers 
Clark. 

Clark contemplated an expedition against Detroit 
and made various efforts to launch it. He was un- 
able to procure the necessary means and it was 
never undertaken. 

In May, 1780, Clark arrived at the junction of the 
Ohio and the Mississippi to establish a post "for the 
conveniency of trade and other purposes." Five 
miles below the Ohio's mouth at the "Iron Banks" 
a fort was built and in honor of Clark's old neigh- 
bor and friend named "Fort Jefferson." 

The Indian raids upon the frontier continued. 
The backwoodsmen met upon the Licking River to 
carry the war into the Indian country. Here they 
were joined by Clark under whose leadership over 
nine hundred riflemen marched to Chillicothe, the 
principal town of the Shawnees. The Indians had 
deserted the place. The invaders burned the town. 
Thence they proceeded to Piqua on the Little 
Miami, where, after some desultory fighting, the 
Indians, cowed and disheartened, retreated. During 
the remainder of the year, the red men did little 
damage. While the border warfare was to a degree 
renewed in 1781, conditions were more tolerable for 
the men of the West. 

Clark's great work was finished at the conclusion 
of the Revolution. For many years and until his 
death in 1818 he lived in poverty near Louisville, 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 



Kentucky. He was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery 
at Louisville. But for him and his little army, 
Franklin and Jay could not have succeeded in gain- 
ing at the peace table Great Britain's recognition 
of our country's right to the Northwest Territory. 
Among the many heroes whom the story of our 
country reveals, we never should forget the majestic 
figure of this man who through difficulties of great 
magnitude, and without personal reward, won 
against heavy odds the vast empire, from which has 
since been carved five of the great states of the 
American Union. 




STAKK MO.XUMKNT ON Till". 11 \1 'II.l'.l'l Kl.l > 
Ol" MKNNIXCVroX 



How often have a few determined 
men changed the history of the world? 



The Battle of Bennington 

"For a cycle was closed and rounded, 
A continent lost and won, 
When Stark and his men went over 
The earthworks at Bennington." 

— W. H. Babcock. 



THOUGH the most vital pages of history relate 
to peaceful accomplishments, in the entire 
record of man probably at least half of each century 
has been reddened by war. If the importance of 
mankind's battles were measured by the numbers 
engaged, Bennington would be small; but it is 
not numbers that determine a battle's rank. The 
fame of Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans 
will survive forever. It is the results accomplished 
and the issues involved that determine the im- 
portance of conflicts. Thus judged, Bennington was 
one of the great battles of the world. 

For many years Englishmen had struggled for 
their rights against the usurping British Crown. 
That governmental philosophy of oppression and • 
folly — the divine right of kings — was asserted by 
George III. The King and the majority of the 
English Parliament overrode the protests of free- 
men. In America came revolt. In England, 
William Pitt, Edmund Burke, Charles Fox and 
other able men gave the Revolutionists staunch 
support in the House of Commons' debates. 

In the colonies, beginning in April, 1775, war had 



THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON 



been raging. At Concord was fired "the shot heard 
'round the world." Then came the American re- 
pulse at Bunker Hill, the successful siege of Boston 
and the driving back of Putnam at Long Island. 
The succession of American defeats that followed 
and Washington's historic retreat through New 
Jersey were alleviated only by the later American 
victories at Princeton and Trenton. 

The summer of 1777 was one of the darkest in the 
Revolutionary era. Then was prepared by the 
British government what it thought would be a final 
blow. Burgoyne, one of the ablest of the English 
Generals, was placed in command of a force of 
seven thousand men. These were to march from 
Canada down Lake Champlain to Albany, where 
an English force from New York would meet them. 
Thus New England was to be separated from the 
rest of the colonies and the cause of independence 
defeated. Among Burgoyne's troops were several 
thousand hired Hessians; he was accompanied, too, 
by many Indian warriors. The Indians had been 
enlisted principally through the influence of the 
famous Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, who in London 
had been presented to the King. Brant promised 
George III the support of the redmen, and the 
entire Iroquois Confederacy had joined the British 
cause. While Burgoyne was marching down Lake 
Champlain, another British General, St. Leger, was 
leading his troops through western New York to 
crush the Amerian settlements of the then Far 



THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON 



West. The heroic work of the American General 
Herkimer and of General Benedict Arnold brought 
St. Leger's invasion to defeat and disaster. Bur- 
goyne proceeded onward. The American continent 
had never before seen such a brilliant military array. 
The plumed British host seemed invincible. Along 
the eastern shore of Lake Champlain came the 
Hessian infantry and the German dragoons. Down 
the Western bank marched the British grenadiers. 
Between the glittering helmets on the one shore and 
the scarlet uniforms on the other the lake bore the 
British transports. Here, too, plied protecting gun- 
boats. Hundreds of canoes carried the horde of 
redmen. Artillery, infantry, cavalry and Indians 
were steadily advancing on a mission dreadful to 
the colonists. Across the lake rang bugle calls. 
The mountains echoed the saluting artillery. Ever 
southward came the pulsing drums, the tramp of 
feet and the enshivering Indian war cries. Oppo- 
sition was futile. Crown Point was quickly taken, 
then Ticonderoga — two years before conquered by 
Ethan Allen and his men — with many cannon, fell 
into the British hands. Seemingly, the onward 
march of this thoroughly-equipped army of highly- 
trained professional soldiers could not be stayed. 
It was the American hope to give battle before the 
invaders should reach Albany. General Schuyler 
sought — at first unsuccessfully — to gather sufficient 
troops to engage Burgoyne. 

As the English army reached the southern end 



THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON 



of Lake Champlain it was discovered that the 
Americans had a quantity of military stores and 
supplies at Bennington, Vermont. To seize them 
Burgoyne dispatched Colonel Baum and six hun- 
dred Hessians. The news of this expedition swept 
li"ke wildfire through the frontier settlements. John 
Stark, of the Hampshire Grants, then forty-nine 
years old, had fought with Major Roger's Rangers 
in the French and Indian War. As a colonel he had 
Ipd colonial troops in the Battle of Bunker Hill. At 
Princeton and Trenton, Stark, then a General, had 
most ably supported Washington. To the "Green 
Mountain Boys" he now appealed. Several hundred 
gathered to repel the threatened danger. About 
four miles northwest of Bennington, on August 16, 
1777, Stark gave battle. The British were en- 
trenched upon a hill that rises from the Walloom- 
scoick River. On three sides Stark stationed his 
troops. Before the charge was sounded, he ob- 
served, "We*ll beat them to-day or Molly Stark's a 
widow." 

The story of the United States contains accounts 
of many desperate battles. Among these are the 
heroic Texan charge at San Jacinto ; the sharpshoot- 
ing of the Tennessee riflemen under Jackson at New 
Orleans; the valorous onset of Pickett and his men 
at Gettysburg; and the mad sweep of the Holston 
and Watauga settlers up King's Mountain. Per- 
haps in none of these was the disparity in equip- 
ment between the Americans and their foes so great 



THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON 



as at Bennington. The New Englanders were with- 
out bayonets; most of them had only their fowHng 
pieces and many fought with the implements of the 
farm. Artillery they had none. The desperate 
Americans swarmed over the Hessian breastworks. 
Hand to hand they struggled. Many, including 
Colonel Baum, were killed, and many were wounded. 
All the British survivors were taken prisoners. 
Prior to the onslaught Baum had sent a messenger 
to Burgoyne seeking re-enforcements, and eight 
hundred regulars marched promptly to the support 
of the Hessian army. Colonel Seth Warner met 
and defeated them in a series of engagements. 
Burgoyne, with his long line of communications to 
Canada, needed the supplies, but he failed to get 
them. His loss in troops killed, wounded or cap- 
tured at Bennington seriously impaired the strength 
of his force. The valor with which the New Eng- 
land farmers fought discouraged the Iroquois, so 
in large numbers they deserted. The victory of the 
Americans gave heart to all the colonists, and 
recruits quickly joined Schuyler's army. The de- 
lay which the battle of Bennington occasioned 
Burgoyne permitted the Americans to gather for 
the fight at Bemis Heights, more generally known 
as the Battle of Saratoga. Morgan and his riflemen, 
the able Schuyler, the inefficient Gates and the 
dashing, though later recreant, Arnold might not 
have succeeded at Saratoga had Bennington not 
been successfully fought. Because of this, Benning- 



THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON 



ton was a great turning point of the Revolution. 
Burgoyne said that had he succeeded at Benning- 
ton he would not have failed at Saratoga. 

Following the defeat of Burgoyne's expedition 
came the recognition of the colonists by the French 
and their aid in troops and ships of war. The 
Americans were much heartened. In Bennington 
was the earnest of ultimate triumph. At Bemis 
Heights a great monument is reared. In one niche 
is a statue of Morgan, in another one of Gates, in 
another one of Schuyler. The fourth is empty. 
Here, but for his later perfidy, would have stood 
the figure of Benedict Arnold. At the village of 
Bennington, where once the old storehouse stood, a 
gray granite shaft lifts its point into the sky. 
On the field where John Stark led his men to vic- 
tory, the men of Vermont, New Hampshire and 
Massachusetts wrote with blood their guarantee of 
American independence. The leveling plow and a 
shielding nature have concealed the hill top entrench- 
ments. The Walloomscoick River flows on, uncon- 
scious that over a century ago survivors of Benning- 
ton cleansed their wounds in its waters. Save for a 
small monument to Stark, unmarked are the slopes 
where the New England farmers charged under the 
burning August sun, but what was here done has 
not perished from the recollection of men. In a 
nation's heart endures a memory more secure than 
legends inscribed on chiseled granite or molded 
bronze. 




slJ■:l•:^^" iioi.i.ow ciirKcii. rAKinrowx. x. v. 



Wherever one goes in America 
there can always he found a shrine. 



A Trip to Tarrytown 

"Not far from this village, perhaps about three 
miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land 
among high hills, which is one of the quietest 
places in the whole world. A small brook glides 
through it, with just murmur enough to lull one 
to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail 
or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only 
sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tran- 
quillity." — Washington Irving. 

ON a misty, loury morning in the latter part 
of August, we left New York City en route 
for Tarrytown — there to visit Washington Irving's 
home and some of the scenes made famous 
by his pen. As we left the train, we were at once 
assailed by a chorus of Jehus, whose call conjured 
up nothing of the greatness of the place where they 
plied their trade, — "Taxi, taxi," sounds "all salary 
and hire." Finding none of the equine friends of 
Gunpowder, or their descendants, we were of neces- 
sity required to bargain for one of the modern 
peace-disturbing air-enfouling vehicles at the mod- 
erate price of three dollars per hour. In a fine driz- 
zling rain we wound up an old Tarr3^own street 
to the New York-Albany post road. We listened 
in vain for a rumbling coach and rattling harness. 
No post horn warned us of the coming of fiery 
steeds and hallooing travellers. Instead, along the 
brick-paved street ran gas propelled vehicles of all 
descriptions; some purred; others rattled; some 



A TRIP TO TARRYTOWN 



squeaked; some pounded and puffed; all were out 
of place. As we travelled along toward Sleepy Hol- 
low, we shut them all from sight, hearing and smell. 

We saw the foliage as Irving must many times 
have seen it — glistening in the morning rain. We 
were travelling over the road that once on an au- 
tumn's night was traversed by the disconsolate 
school master, Ichabod Crane. We could almost 
see in the mist his bullet-head and small peaked 
hat, — his thin figure mounted on the ambling scare- 
crow of a horse, his flapping coat-tails and his de- 
jected air, now that his dream of happy opulence 
had been shattered by the calculatingly flirtatious 
Katrina. We passed the place where he had imag- 
ined the ghostly presence in Major Andre's tree. 
A tree is there now — but surely 'tis not over 
seventy-five years old! The tree that marked the 
place of the capture of the British spy has doubt- 
less long since gone the way of him whom it com- 
memorated. A monument now stands beside the 
road telling briefly of Arnold's treason, Andre's 
capture and its discovery. There is also recorded 
the names of the captors and a testimonial from 
George Washington of the worth of their work. 

We rode on. Soon we came to where Brom 
Bones, masquerading as the headless horseman, was 
silhouetted against the sky, striking terror into the 
fugitive pedagogue. We descended to the creek. 
On the hill beyond, still stands — ^where it has stood 
since 1697 — the same church that gave Ichabod 



A TRIP TO TARRYTOWN 



(in his reliance on the Dutch housevrouw's tale) 
the hope that was so quickly and rudely shattered 
by a pumpkin. The old bridge over which the flee- 
ing steeds hurried is no more. In its stead a trim 
concrete structure greets the traveller, and a bronze 
plate, countersunk in one of its sides, tells of its 
early progenitor. In front of the church we halted. 
The building was closed but through a half open 
shutter the wooden pews were visible. It was here 
that Katrina had so often, unconsciously, succeeded 
in centering the covert attention of so many swains 
during prayer. These walls had once been vibrant 
with the nasal quaver of the odd hero of Irving's 
"Legend of Sleepy Hollow." In the surrounding 
yard many tombstones tell their brief story of the 
dust beneath them — names, dates of birth and of 
death. To the stranger, these tell only that here is 
now common clay. Below the cemetery the stream 
winds around in a deep steep-sided valley. It must 
have been here that in his imagination Washington 
Irving saw old Rip and his dog trudging away on 
the fateful hunting trip which was born of the 
shrewishness of Dame VanWinkle. Somewhere in 
the hills above he met the strange Half Moon crew 
and partook of the wicked flagon. 

We drove farther up the road and into the great 
cemetery that crowns the hill. A winding drive 
took us to the great author's tomb. A low iron 
fence encloses many small white marble tomb- 
stones. The largest is a simple oval topped slab 



A TRIP TO TARRYTOWN 



about three feet in height. Its inscription is all 
sufficient for this and other generations of readers: 

"Washington Irving 
Born 1781— Died 1853." 

This suggests to the pilgrim the Alhambra, the 
Moorish tales, the preeminent Life of George Wash- 
ington, Mahomet, the Life of Columbus, Astoria, 
the many tales of the Sketch Book and of hours 
of humor, learning, philosophy and happiness that 
have been given to millions on this and other con- 
tinents by him vhose mortal part is here enclosed. 

Many gravestones for his family and kin of his 
and later generations are found here, as if the 
love borne his memory might be further increased 
by this collection of earth and ashes. 

After surveying the assemblage of monuments, 
and thinking of the career of the greatest American 
author — not sadly but with a feeling of friendly joy 
that he had lived, thought and written — we turned 
to survey the scene spread out before us. Below 
ran monuments, Walls, shrubs and trees to the val- 
ley of the brook; beyond on the gentle rise some 
of the roofs of Tarrytown were visible. Further 
off flowed the majestic Hudson, the confining 
Palisades showing hugely through the mist. A 
sloop was making its way down stream tacking now 
and then that its sails might get the pull of a light 



A TRIP TO TARRYTOWN 



South Southwest breeze. What spot could be more 
appropriate than this to hold the mortal part of 
Washington Irving ! The visitor has enforced upon 
him scenes that, on first beholding, seem long fa- 
miliar. A drive to the crest of the hill led us to 
less simple monuments. In a beautiful slope of 
green, surrounded by shrubbery and trees, Andrew 
Carnegie had, a few days before, been buried. 
Among the foliage, a soldiers' tent was visible. He 
was guarding the earth-enclosed body of the Iron 
King that ghouls might not plunder. Doubtless 
this alert watcher will soon be replaced by a grim- 
mer protection — one of granite and steel. 

Not far distant our driver pointed out the Rocke- 
feller burial lot. Not many years hence this will 
doubtless hold the Oil King's remains. 

How the march of existence goes on! The mas- 
ter iron-monger of the world, the founder of hun- 
dreds of libraries, the great giver of many benefac- 
tions — has passed on. Soon an inscribed stone will 
tell his brief story. His dust, now guarded by a 
rifleman, will ere long be forgotten. His mighty 
work will live on. 

Absorbed in thoughts of the brevity of life and 
how some great souls, unappalled by the shortness 
of its span, use it earnestly and efficiently — sanely 
mindful of the duties of the eternal now — we drove 
back through Tarrytown toward Irving's old home. 
A path called "Sunshine Lane," winding among 



A TRIP TO TARRYTOWN 



the trees, led us from the New York-Albany Post 
Road to a large closed gate. Through the foliage 
we caught a faint glimpse suggestive of a house. 
Nearer approach was barred by the gate and also 
by a sign bearing the name of one of the great 
author's descendants — DuPont Irving — and warn- 
ing us not to enter. We could quite agree with 
the owner's desire not to be disturbed by curious 
visitors; however, we regretted that we could not 
stand for a few moments beneath the roof that had 
sheltered the greatest literary genius of America. 
Somewhat disappointed, we made our way by a 
deliberately circuitous route back to an old Tarry- 
town tavern to partake of a chicken dinner. This 
done, we walked slowly down the hill to the rail- 
road station to board the next train for New York 
City. 

How delightful a little trip had been ours! As 
we rode along the Hudson to Manhattan Island, a 
long procession of characters came to our imagina- 
tion — Diedrich Knickerbocker, Wouter VanTwiller, 
Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, Peter Stuyvesant and 
whole troops of men and women with whom Wash- 
ington Irving has made us laugh, grieve or philoso- 
phise, as he swayed us to the mood. 

We tried to recall the paragraph with which 
Irving closed his history of New York. Our mem- 
ory rewarded us only with its last sentence. With 
it we end this brief account of a visit which you. 



A TRIP TO TARRYTOWN 



my friend, should also make to this American shrine 
on the banks of the Hudson: 

"Haply this frail compound of dust, which, while 
alive, may have given birth to nought but un- 
profitable weeds, may form an humble sod of the 
valley, from whence may spring many a sweet 
wild flower to adorn my beloved island of 
Mannahata." 




JOHN PAUL TONES 



Though trained for many things, 
for at least one thing must one be 
trained well. 



John Paul Jones 

"But thou, brave Jones, no blame shalt bear, 
The rights of man demand your care: 

For these you dare the greedy waves. 
No tyrant, on destruction bent, 
Has plann'd thy conquest — thou art sent 
To humble tyrants and their slaves." 

— Philip Freneau. 

WITHIN the United States Naval Academy at 
Annapolis, Maryland, is interred the ashes 
of John Paul Jones. For one hundred thirteen years, 
from his death until 1910, they rested in a Paris cem- 
etery. The spirit of this man, the first great Ameri- 
can naval officer, has been with us always. His 
cry, "I have not yet begun to fight," is unforgotten. 
It will go ringing on through the centuries like a 
clarion call to battle. Its thrill is found in the 
triumphant message from Perry, "We have met the 
enemy and they are ours;" its indomitable power 
was felt in the words of the dying Lawrence, 
"Don't give up the ship ;" its unconquerable force 
was in Stephen Decatur when in the Tripolitan 
harbor he sank the pirate craft. In the turret of the 
Monitor it pulsed through the sturdy Ericson; its 
throb was in Dewey's men in far-off Manilla Bay, 
following the calmly-spoken words, "When you 
are ready, Gridley, fire." It fixed forever the high 
standard of courage of our navy — a navy that in 
all the wars from the days of Jones to those of 
Simms has never failed to conquer. 



JOHN PAUL JONES 



Who was this man whose spirit now stands on 
the bridge of every American ship, is within every 
boiler room, behind every gun and aloft on every 
fighting top that carries the Stars and Stripes? He 
was born in County Kircudbright, Scotland, in 1747, 
his lineage obscure, his outward opportunities few. 
But there was that within him that made oppor- 
tunities. His name was John Paul. In later life he 
took that of John Paul Jones. Unaided even by a 
christening, he made that name, common though 
it was, a synonym for indomitable will and unyield- 
ing pluck. 

At twelve he was a sailor, at nineteen a chief 
mate, and at twenty-one a captain. When twenty- 
six years old, he left the sea and settled in Vir- 
ginia. In 1775, he was commissioned as a lieutenant 
in the Continental navy. On the little ship "Alfred" 
he pulled the halyards that hoisted to the breeze 
our first naval flag. It was the "Rattlesnake flag," 
bearing those warning words, "Don't tread on me." 
He knew one trade well; he was a skillful sailor 
and navigator. He had diligently improved his 
boyhood years before the mast. 

In 1775 he was placed in command of the brig 
"Providence," with a crew of seventy and arma- 
ment of twelve four-pounders. In four months he 
had captured sixteen 6nemy ships. Later, with 
other commands he burned enemy transports and 
captured munitions, gaining supplies for Americans 
and destroying them for the British. 



JOHN PAUL JONES 



In June, 1777, he was given the "Ranger," a 
vessel of three hundred tons, armed with eighteen 
six-pound guns. On July 4th he ran to her mast- 
head the first flag of Stars and Stripes that was 
ever flown in the American navy. From then until 
1779 he was in European waters, fighting and 
harrying enemy shipping. 

In the latter year he converted a rotten, con- 
demned merchantman in a French harbor to an 
American man-of-war. In honor of Benjamin 
Franklin he named it the "Bonhomme Richard." 
With this as his flagship, he cruised about England 
and Scotland, striking terror wherever he appeared 
along shore or upon the seas. With two vessels of 
his squadron accompanying the "Good Richard," 
he fell in with the British Baltic convoy led by the 
staunch new frigate "Serapis." Then ensued what 
was perhaps the most desperate naval battle ever 
fought in the history of the world. With his ship 
riddled, his prisoners at the pumps, his magnificent 
crew suffering and many dead and dying, he fought 
his stronger foe. For hours the battle lasted. When 
in desperate straits Jones was asked if he sur- 
rendered. He made his memorable reply. At the 
close of the contest, though the American ship sank, 
the victors were possessed of the British man-of- 
war, and in it made their way to France. 

The story of his life and of his death in Paris in 
1792 are well known. The one great event in his 
career that stands supreme is the battle on the 



JOHN PAUL JONES 



North Sea. He believed in initiative, and expressed 
that beHef thus: "I do not wish to have command 
of any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to 
go in harm's way." 

Though born in Scotland, and his youthful days 
spent at sea, he was a real American. His patriotism 
v/as proved by his deeds. He worded it in the say- 
ings, "I can never renounce the glorious title of a 
citizen of the United States," and *'I have ever 
looked out for the honor of the American flag." 
Never in all his fights did he have a good ship, 
never did he have a full crew. His weaknesses in 
equipment and men were always overbalanced by 
his skill and bravery. 

Whether he dreamed in his youth that some day 
his name would stand among the first of the world's 
naval heroes, we do not know. That history would 
call him the "Father of the American Navy," he 
probably never dreamed. To wish for immortality 
in the memories of men may be vanity; it is not 
vanity, hov/ever, to wish to serve so well that the 
service shall be enduring. 

In a few short hours one September day John 
Paul Jones wrote his name forever in the earthly 
records of great deeds. It was no sudden burst of 
genius that gave him the power so to do. In his 
early youth, though he then did not know when or 
where, he was preparing for those four hours of 
glory. In the night on a yard-arm of a reeling ship 
how often had he stored up materials of physical 



JOHN PAUL JONES 



and moral strength for the sudden heavy draft made 
that autumn evening in 1779. In strange harbors, 
under distant skies, in currents, in calms and in 
storms, he had learned his art. Under the stars 
he had heard the blocks creaking with the straining 
rigging as he watched the weather and read his 
chart. From stem to stern, from keel to top-truck, 
he knew ships. He knew the whims of wind and 
tide! He knew the tricks of sails, of sheets and 
wheel. He taught himself how to use best and 
to its uttermost degree every resource, however 
meagre it might be. He learned what every sailor- 
man must learn, that his skill must be ever available, 
ever ready, and that to know too late is not to 
know at all. Thus he prepared day by day and 
year by year. When his great hour struck, he was 
ready. At thirty-two, unaided by chance or fortune, 
there was suddenly opened a page of history on 
which he should write his name imperishably — a 
page whose reading would ever inspire men to dar- 
ing with unbreaking will. 




SAMTKI. llorSTON 



The men who made the westward 
march were cast in heroic mold. 



Sam Houston 

"Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 

By angel hands to valor given; 
The stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us. 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?" 

— Joseph Rodman Drake. 

THE most heroic figure in history is the Amer- 
ican pioneer. All the virtues and vices of the 
frontier were his. All the suffering and privation 
of the uncultivated wilderness were by him endured. 
All the dangers of lurking savages were braved and 
overcome. All that initiative, patience and courage 
could accomplish was by him performed. He was a 
man of imagination and foresight. As he stood, 
over a century ago, beyond the pale of settlement 
on the western slope of the Alleghanies, he gazed 
afar over forests and rivers, over beauteous valleys 
and mountains, and, with the beat of the distant 
Pacific in his straining ears, caught a vision of a 
continental destiny for the colonies of the Atlantic 
seaboard — a vision of peace and prosperity, of rang- 
ing herds and waving fields, of harnessed rivers and 
plying commerce, of delving for nature's store of 
treasure to be wrought into usefulness for man- 
kind — a vision that through him has been realized, 
for wherever the forest rang with his axe there he 



SAM HOUSTON 



has uplifted the schoolhouse and the temple; wher- 
ever his home was planted there has flowered into 
beauty and blossomed into perfume the true ideals 
of American life. 

In 1793, the year that saw the death of Louis XVI 
of France, two children were born in Virginia. Both 
were to become leaders in the western advance; 
both were to become apostles to spread the liberty- 
giving American institutions. One was destined to 
be the colonizer and founder of the Republic of 
Texas; the other was selected for the mission of 
wresting her independence from the overlords of 
Mexico. One was Stephen Austin, the colonizer; 
the other, that great child and man of romance, 
Samuel Houston. 

Houston was of Scotch-Irish stock; his father, a 
sturdy frontiersman who fought in the Revolution- 
ary War, Of his mother we know that she was a 
woman of courage, and that, as in all great men, her 
most famous son inherited his mother's qualities. 
Her Spartan spirit is shown by an incident of Sam's 
enlistment in the War of 1812. Standing in her 
cabin door, she gave her son his musket, saying, 
"Take this musket, and never disgrace it, for, remem- 
ber, I had rather all my sons should fill one honor- 
able grave than that one of them should turn his 
back to save his life. Go, and remember, too, that 
while the door of my cottage is open to brave men, 
it is eternally shut against cowards." 

Houston's father died when Sam was thirteen 



SAM HOUSTON 



years of age. His mother took the large family over 
the mountains, to a rough home they made in the 
Tennessee forests. The Tennessee River, seven 
miles distant, marked the boundary line between the 
settlers and the Cherokee Indians. Of Sam's earliest 
years little is recorded except that he attended a 
backwoods' school for a few months, and also read 
and reread Pope's translation of the "Iliad." What 
hopes, what dreams were stirred by these Homeric 
tales of warrior heroes, we can surmise from his 
later life. We find him when fourteen years of age 
leaving his mother's home to join the Cherokee tribe, 
with whom he then lived for four years. He was 
adopted as a son by the Cherokee chief "Oolootee- 
kah," and was christened "Colonneh," or "The 
Rover." 

During these four years he played the alert 
games of his dusky playmates. He was taught the 
habits of the game of the primeval forest; he knew 
the cunning of the wild fox and the intelligence of 
the wolf ; he learned to imitate the calls of the wild ; 
he heard the Indian tales of prowess and of daring ; 
he knew the secrets of stream and of woodland. He 
listened to the myths of the redmen; he heard the 
poetry of Indian oratory in the council wigwams ; 
he became acquainted with their religion, with its 
rewards of all the beautiful in nature in the Happy 
Hunting Ground. With them he heard the voices of 
departed ancestors in the sighing of the trees. He 
wore the Indian dress with all its barbarous finery. 



SAM HOUSTON 



He learned the lessons of those wild children of the 
forest, who, with all their cruelty and all their 
savagery, have never been excelled by any race in 
their worship of the wonderful and beautiful of the 
earth. He received that training which is only for 
the observant, in a school whose dome is the blue 
sky, whose curriculum is unbounded by dogma or 
superstition, whose teachers are ever present com- 
panions, and whose laboratories are in hills and 
running brooks, in the glades where deer run, and 
in twig, stone and flower — that university of nature 
which gives the secret of the usefulness of life to 
all who sincerely inquire. 

In Houston's adventurous career we find many 
evidences of Indian characteristics in his nature. 
His fiery temper, his love of the wild, his vanity, his 
commanding presence, his lofty eloquence, his valor 
— even in his youth — were strangely apparent. 

Until he was eighteen years of age, Houston 
remained with the Cherokees. Being in debt for 
ammunition, he returned to his white friends to earn 
sufficient money by teaching school to discharge his 
financial obligations. He received a tuition of eight 
dollars per annum from each pupil. This salary was 
paid one-third in cotton goods, one-third in corn at 
33 1-3C per bushel, and one-third in cash. 

Here he reigned as master in that humble but 
mighty American institution, the district school. 
Here the young mind of the pupil is trained to 
respect the authority of government and to revere 



SAM HOUSTON 



the memories of our nation's heroes. Here he 
buffets with the Norsemen on the voyage to Vin- 
land, and feels the hope and the despair of the un- 
charted sailings with the Genoese. Here he dreams 
with Ponce de Leon, and wanders with LaSalle and 
Frontenac. He stands with Balboa at Darien as the 
mighty Pacific meets his gaze, and charges with 
Pizarro among the fastnesses of the Incas. He 
steps with the heroic Pilgrims upon the rock at 
Plymouth, and suffers with the adventurous Cav- 
aliers at Jamestown. With Magellan he rounds the 
Horn, and with Frobisher and Drake pursues the 
galleons on the Spanish Main. He fights with the 
pioneers on the Atlantic coast and in the Piedmont, 
and braves the dangers beyond the pass of Cumber- 
land. He rides through the night with Paul 
Revere, and fights side by side with the Minute- 
men. He charges with John Stark at Bennington, 
and suffers the pain and misery of the winter at 
Valley Forge. He receives with Washington the 
surrender at Yorktown, and sits with Madison and 
Hamilton in the Constitutional Convention. He 
goes forth with Boone to conquer a continent, and 
trades with the Indians at the mouth of the Colum- 
bia. He joins the mad charge of Pickett at Gettys- 
burg, and rides on the wings of the wind with Sheri- 
dan at Winchester. He lives the lives of all who 
dared ; he suffers in the reeking battlefield ; he meets 
the able savage with heart undaunted. He toils in 
the wilderness of mountain and plain, and catches 



SAM HOUSTON 



the spirit of those who ever build higher and higher 
on the foundations laio so deep by the men who 
have gone before. He feels the beat of public 
progress, and becomes that crowning achievement 
of the world's civilization — an American citizen. 

After a period of teaching, Houston, for a session, 
attended an academy at Maryville. This brief ex- 
perience and his early few months' training in the 
backwoods' school constituted the only schooling 
that Houston ever had. His education was ob- 
tained through association with nature and with 
men. Throughout his life he read a few books. He 
studied deeply Caesar's "Commentaries," and learned 
their simple wisdom on the art of war. Homer 
and Shakespeare were frequently read by him, and 
in his later life he devoted much study to the Bible. 
His preserved speeches are tinged with the language 
of Holy Writ, intermixed with the rich imagery of 
the eloquence of the red man. 

George Rogers Clark, who was chiefly instru- 
mental in holding for the colonies the territory be- 
tv/een the Alleghanies and the Mississippi during 
the Revolution; Lewis and Clark, who broke the 
trail to Oregon; Fremont, who made the path 
through Colorado ; Boone, who led the way into 
Tennessee and Kentucky; Kenton, the scout of the 
Kanawha; Davy Crockett and Bowie, who died at 
the Alamo; and the other intrepid men who led the 
American advance over mountain steeps, through 
tangled forests, across sandy plains — these men who 



SAM HOUSTON 



defied the hardships of toil, thirst and hunger, alert 
pioneers who met undaunted and alone the lurking 
dangers of the fastnesses of the wilderness, may 
have had dreams less vast than the later results of 
their work warranted, but, like all men who com- 
bine imagination with accomplishment, they were 
willing to, and did, perform the immediate tasks that 
were sternly given them. Of such as these was he 
whose crowning achievements were in the conquest 
and preservation of that vast expanse of tropical 
fertility which we now know as the State of Texas. 

As it is worth while to trace the great river to 
its sources, or to know the tremendous forces that 
wrought out the soil of this continent, so will it be 
profitable to learn in what school and how was 
trained in his early manhood he who led the great 
march of Americans to the banks of the Rio 
Grande. 

In 1813, while the war between Great Britain 
and the United States was in progress, Houston 
enlisted in the army under his lifelong friend. Gen- 
eral Andrew Jackson. In March of that year he 
took a glorious part in the campaign against the 
Creek Indians and fought at the battle of the Horse 
Shoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River. As an ensign, 
he commanded a platoon of Tennessee riflemen, 
and at their head he charged through the leaden 
hail that came from the Creek entrenchments. 
While scaling the Indian breastworks, a barbed 
arrow entered his thigh. General Jackson ordered 



SAM HOUSTON 



him to the rear, but, under his threatening sword, 
Houston forced one of his lieutenants to withdraw 
the arrow. After the wound was bandaged he pro- 
ceeded with his men. One thousand savages and 
one thousand Tennesseeans fought with rifle, arrow, 
spear, sword, tomahawk and dagger. The Indians' 
prophets had promised them victory. A dark cloud 
was to be the token of the Great Spirit. After the 
first fierce carnage, the victorious Americans called 
upon the enemy's survivors to surrender. A light 
rain then fell. The Indians took the cloud from 
which it came as the promised signal, and their 
prophets stood firm. They had withdrawn to a port- 
holed log fortification in a deep ravine, and here they 
defied the further onslaughts of the whites. Gen- 
eral Jackson called for volunteers to make the 
assault, but no officer offered to lead so desperate a 
charge. Houston seized a rifle, and, calling upon 
his platoon to follow, led them against the savage 
fire. He received two bullets in his shoulder in the 
last event of that fateful day that destroyed the 
power of Creeks forever. Houston, who was then 
only twenty years of age, was not expected to re- 
cover. After enduring much suffering, he arrived 
two months later at his mother's home in Blount 
County, Tennessee, where for months he lay in 
agony. Finally he was taken to Marysville for 
medical assistance, but the wounds never healed. 
From then until his death, fifty years " later, he 



SAM HOUSTON 



carried a running sore as a memento of his first 
baptism of fire. 

After sufficiently recovering to undertake the 
journey, Houston traveled down the Cumberland, 
the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans to join 
his command. In the little bark he took to the 
West a copy of the "Iliad," a volume of Shake- 
speare and the Bible. It was a strange coincidence 
that on this first trip of Houston to the Father of 
Waters he carried the greatest epic ever written, 
the book of the world's greatest religion, and the 
works of the most illustrious genius who ever 
wrought the fancies of his brain into an enduring 
literary fabric for all the ages. On the Mississippi, 
as if to greet him who was to do so much to ex- 
tend the commerce of a nation toward the West, 
was met the first steamboat that ever disturbed the 
Father of Waters. The following winter he sailed 
around Florida, which in a few years was to be 
ceded by Spain, and thence to New York for further 
medical treatment. He returned overland to Ten- 
nessee, where he was made a sub-agent among the 
Cherokees. In the spring of 1818 he conducted a 
delegation of Indians to Washington, where he was 
reprimanded for appearing in his wild Indian dress 
before Secretary of State Calhoun, and later was 
strangely charged with having prevented African 
negroes from being smuggled into the Western 
states from Florida. Smarting under the unjust 



SAM HOUSTON 



criticisms, he resigned from the army, and, at the 
age of twenty-five, undertook the study of law. 

In the march of the American pioneers toward 
the Pacific, the first were those of the hunting rifle, 
like Boone, each generation of whom moved further 
westward until they reached the great sea. These 
were followed by those of the axe, who girdled 
the trees and cleared small patches of ground, en- 
gaged in shiftless farming, and on the coming of 
more permanent farmers deserted their log cabins 
to move farther West. With the coming of the 
third class, the permanent farmers, land titles be- 
came of more importance. In a pioneer community, 
where hardship was usual, living rough and de- 
fense of life often dependent on the effort of the 
individual, it was natural that personal quarrels 
were frequent and violence common. These and 
litigation over land titles gave occasion for the 
frontier lawyer. Court sessions were days of great 
social gatherings. For miles about a county-seat 
over the rough trails would come the population to 
listen to the trials in which all were interested, in 
which all took sides, and in which anybody's busi- 
ness was everybody's business. Court proceedings 
furnished the play, and the court-room the stage 
for the backwoods' lawyers and judges to display 
their qualities. Every -case gave an opportunity for 
the lawyer to advance his political plans and to 
interfere with those of his opponents. At the 
taverns, between court sessions, the members of 



SAM HOUSTON 



the bar could discourse to their admirers and berate 
their enemies. The stump speech here developed 
into a national institution. 

Lured by the attractions of this field, Houston 
decided to study law. He entered the office of James 
Trimble, at Nashville. The usual period of study 
in those days was eighteen months. Houston, how- 
ever, studied six months, devoting himself to acquir- 
ing a few general principles of the science. His 
sense of justice was not dulled by commencing his 
endeavors in an attempt to digest a mass of reported 
cases. In his twenty-fifth year, he was admitted to 
the bar and commenced practice at the little town 
of Lebanon, Tennessee. Here his office rent was 
one dollar per month, and the local postmaster, a 
Mr. Goldsworthy, advanced him this as well as his 
postage, which was then twenty-five cents per 
letter. His law library of a few books that he 
could carry in his saddle-bags he also purchased on 
credit. After three months' practice, he was elected 
district-attorney and removed from Lebanon to 
Nashville to assume the duties of that office. 

As public prosecutor he had to contend with some 
of the ablest minds of the frontier bar. Though 
he was not a scholarly lawyer, his native ability, his 
ready wit and the possession, through his early 
training, of a sound and quick judgment, made him 
a dangerous antagonist in the forums in which he 
appeared. His rough eloquence, his fervid imagina- 



SAM HOUSTON 



tion and his vigor won for him a large following 
among the people of Tennessee. 

His popularity was such that by acclamation he 
was elected Major-General of the state troops. 

In 1823, Houston was elected to Congress from 
the Ninth District of Tennessee. The House of 
Representatives then numbered among its members 
such patriots as Webster, Clay and Randolph. 
Houston profited much from his association with 
these brightest minds of his time. He belonged 
to the Jackson wing of the Democratic party, and 
was one of those men who had within him the 
strong growing spirit of nationalism in the West. 
It was this spirit which in 1828 made Jackson 
President. 

Jackson was Houston's great ideal. While the 
former was in the Senate, Houston served on the 
same committees in the House. On one occasion 
during his second term in Congress, Houston emu- 
lated his patron by engaging in a duel, the only one 
of his long life. The cause was trivial. His an- 
tagonist was General White, who was seriously 
wounded, while Houston escaped unharmed. Many 
times after, because of his hot temper, Houston was 
challenged — once by Mirabeau Lamar, the President 
of Texas from 1838 to 1841, and once by Albert Sid- 
ney Johnston. One day he received a belligerent 
message demanding an engagement on the field of 
honor. Houston handed the challenge to his secre- 



SAM HOUSTON 



tary, instructing him to mark it number fourteen 
and place it on file. 

In 1827, Houston was elected Governor of Tennes- 
see by a majority of twelve thousand. For two 
years of his term he served with credit to himself 
and with honor to the electorate of his state. He 
then married Eliza Allen, the daughter of one of 
his ardent admirers and a staunch political sup- 
porter. The couple lived together for three 
months, when suddenly his wife departed for her 
father's home. In a storm of slander, scandal and 
abuse, Houston remained silent as to the cause of 
this separation. Neither from Mrs. Houston nor 
from him did explanation ever come. The lies of 
a villifying press, the conjectures of little minds, 
v/ho, in an effort to satiate their unwarranted 
curiosity disregard one's right of privacy, the 
slanders of the suspicious, never served to draw 
from either a word as to the cause of their separa- 
tion. Many explanations have been given, but for 
us it is sufficient to know that neither would ever 
suffer derogatory mention of the other. A few 
years later Mrs. Houston obtained a divorce on a 
charge of desertion, and later she married again. 
Houston, suffering much in spirit, decided to aban- 
don his brilliant career and seek again the com- 
panionship of the redmen. He resigned the Gover- 
norship of Tennessee, embarked upon the Cumber- 
land and made his way to the home of his adopted 
father, Oolooteekah. 



SAM HOUSTON 



The Cherokee Indians had by this time removed 
from Tennessee to what is now Eastern Oklahoma 
and Western Arkansas. At the confluence of the 
Arkansas and Illinois rivers lived the Cherokee chief 
in barbaric opulence. His acres were broad, and 
his log dwelling was large. He possessed twelve 
slaves and five hundred cattle. This simple 
aborigine welcomed the successful lawyer and 
politician, the tried warrior and general, from the 
advancing civilization in the East to the Indian 
country beyond the farthest outpost. Here Hous- 
ton lived for four years — perhaps the darkest of his 
life. He indulged in many excesses, seeking for a 
time to drown his disappointment and sorrow in 
strong drink. These were not, however, years of 
inactivity. He took some part in the Indian coun- 
cils, and sought to alleviate the wrongs done the 
Indians by venal government agents. On the occa- 
sion of a visit to Washington to intercede with the 
Federal authorities in behalf of the Cherokees, he 
was upon the floor of the House of Representatives 
assailed in debate by Congressman Salisbury of 
Ohio. He was charged with attempting to defraud 
the Indians. At this Houston took umbrage. On 
accidentally meeting the offending Congressman one 
evening, Houston vented his wrath upon him in a 
physical assault. The, worsted Congressman under- 
took the prosecution of Houston, and in the courts 
of the District of Columbia he was fined five hundred 
dollars. This fine was remitted, however, by 



SAM HOUSTON 



President Jackson. Salisbury also unsuccessfully 
attempted to bar Houston from the privilege of an 
ex-Congressman to appear on the floor of the House 
of Representatives. Upon this Houston was tried. 
His counsel was a Washington lawyer whose name 
is now known in every American household. In 
that dramatic proceeding against the friend of Jack- 
son, that much-maligned exponent of Western 
thought, the counsel for the defense was the author 
of "The Star Spangled Banner" — Francis Scott Key. 

The vast territory stretching from the Sabine to 
the Rio Grande, a larger expanse than Napoleon's 
empire, and now called "Texas," was known to the 
Spaniards before 1600. In 1685, the French ex- 
plorer, LaSalle, who had three years before been 
upon the shores of Texas, founded a settlement at 
Matagorda Bay, which was soon abandoned for one 
upon the LaVaca River. This soon passed away, 
as had the earlier Spanish settlements. The first 
permanent settlement in Texas was made by Spain 
in 1 7 16 at LaBahia, or Goliad. In the same year mis- 
sions were established at San Antonio DeBexar and 
at Nacogdoches. For three-quarters of a century 
Texas had no white settlers except the priests and 
soldiers of a few missions. In 1800 Spain ceded 
Louisiana to Napoleon, and three years later 
Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States. 

The Mississippi River was the highway to New 
Orleans, which now became an American city. A 
few Americans from this outpost pushed on into the 



SAM HOUSTON 



Spanish territory of Texas. In 1819 the United 
States bought Florida from Spain ; whether Texas 
was included in this purchase has been a subject 
for debate. In 1821, Spain's three century domina- 
tion of Mexico came to an end, that country estab- 
lished her independence and in 1822 Augustin de 
Iturbidi was crowned Emperor. In 1823 he was 
deposed, and Antonio Lopeg de Santa Anna became 
the great man of Mexico. 

In 1820, Moses Austin, a native of Connecticut, 
secured a grant of land in Texas. In 1821 he died, 
and his son Stephen took up the colonization plan 
of his father and secured a confirmation of the 
grant made to the latter. He returned to New 
Orleans, going back to San Antonio in March, 1822, 
with a few colonists. He then learned of the Mexi- 
can revolution and of the worthlessness of his Span- 
ish grant. From Iturbide he obtained a new grant, 
and on Iturbide's fall again obtained the same grant 
from Mexico. His site was San Felipi de Austin, a 
hundred miles up the Bragos River. 

The story of the emigration of the Austin col- 
onists to Texas has many parallels in our history. 
Some came over a thousand miles with ox-teams. 
They traversed unmarked forests and trackless 
prairies, and crossed perilous streams, ofttimes on 
rafts of logs bound with grapevines. For food they 
depended much upon' their rifles, but sometimes on 
the plains they ate grasshoppers caught by drives 
into brush corrals. They were without physicians. 



SAM HOUSTON 



In illness only the simplest remedies were available, 
and they performed their own rough surgery. Oft- 
times the dead were buried by the roadside, with no 
memorials but heaps of stones to prevent the rav- 
ages of wild animals. Sometimes the Indians at- 
tacked, murdered, plundered and burned. Stark 
corpses, reddened camp-fire ashes, the presence of 
carrion birds and bleaching bones have frequently 
offered their mute evidence. 

In December, 1832, Houston left the Cherokees 
and went to Texas. In a letter to Andrew Jackson, 
written February 13, 1833, he said: "I am in pos- 
session of some information which will doubtless be 
interesting to you, and may be calculated to for- 
ward your views, if you should entertain any, touch- 
ing the acquisition of Texas by the United States 
government. That such a measure is desired by 
nineteen-twentieths of the population of the prov- 
ince, I cannot doubt." The dissatisfaction of the 
Texans was occasioned by these facts : In 1824 the 
Mexicans had adopted a liberal constitution, in imi- 
tation of that of the United States. In reliance on 
this the American settlers had come. Santa Anna 
sought to establish himself as dictator, and finally 
succeeded. By 1830, there were in Texas about 
twenty thousand American settlers, and these were 
becoming Viuneasy under the growing disregard of 
the security of their rights as the Mexican consti- 
tution had granted them. In 1835, Santa Anna is- 
sued a decree requiring the Texans to give up their 



SAM HOUSTON 



arms; to this the settlers would not submit. In 
February, 1836, the Mexican dictator, to enforce 
his decrees, led an army of six to eight thousand men 
across the Rio Grande. A summary of the events 
from 1824 to and including the massacres at the 
Alamo and at Goliad is well made by Houston in a 
letter written to Santa Anna, dated March 21, 1842. 
It is as follows: 

"The people of Texas were invited to migrate to 
this country for the purpose of enjoying equal rights 
and Constitutional liberty. They were promised 
the shield of the Constitution of 1824, adopted by 
Mexico. Confiding in the pledge, they removed to 
the country to encounter all the privations of a 
wilderness. Under the alluring promises of free 
institutions, citizens of the United States fought 
gallantly in the achievement of Mexican independ- 
ence, and many of them survive, and to this day 
occupy the soil which their privations and valor as- 
sisted in achieving. They brought with them no 
aspirations or projects but such as were loyal to the 
Constitution of Mexico. They repelled the Indian 
savages ; they encountered every discomfort ; 
they subdued the wilderness and converted 
into cultivated fields the idle waste of this now 
prolific territory. Their courage and enterprise 
achieved that which, your countrymen had either 
neglected or left for centuries unaccomplished. The 
Texans, enduring the annoyances and oppressions 
inflicted upon them, remained faithful to the Con- 



SAM HOUSTON 



stitution of Mexico. In 1832, when an attempt was 
made to destroy that Constitution, and when you, 
sir, threw yourself forward as its avowed champion, 
you were sustained with all the fidelity and valor 
that freemen could contribute. 

"You can well imagine the transition of feeling 
which ensued on your accession to power. Your 
subversion of the Constitution of 1824, your estab- 
lishment of Centralism, your conquest of Zacatecas, 
characterized by every act of violence, cruelty and 
rapine, inflicted upon us the profoundest astonish- 
ment. 

"In succession came your orders for the Texans 
to surrender their private arms. Then was pre- 
sented to Texans the alternative of tamely crouch- 
ing to the tyrant*s lash or exalting themselves to 
the attributes of freemen. They chose the latter. 
To chastise them for their presumption induced your 
advance upon Texas, with your boasted veteran 
army, mustering a force nearly equal to the whole 
population of this country at that time. You be- 
sieged and took the Alamo; but under what cir- 
cumstances? You assailed one hundred and fifty 
men; its brave defenders, worn by vigilance and 
duty beyond the power of human nature to sustain, 
were at length overwhelmed by a force of nine 
thousand men, and the place taken. This you have 
been pleased to class in the succession of your vic- 
tories, and I presume you would include the mas- 
sacre of Goliad. 



SAM HOUSTON 



"Your triumph there — if such you are pleased to 
term it — was not the triumph of arms; it was the 
success of perfidy. Fannin and his brave compan- 
ions had beaten back and defied your veteran sol- 
diers. Although outnumbered more than seven to 
one, their valiant, hearty and indomitable courage, 
with holy devotion to the cause of freedom, foiled 
every effort directed by your general to insure his 
success by arms. He had recourse to a flag of truce, 
and when the surrender of the little patriot band 
was secured by the most solemn treaty stipulations, 
what were the tragic scenes that ensued to Mexican 
perfidy? Instead of restoring them to liberty, ac- 
cording to the capitulation, you ordered them to be 
executed, contrary to every pledge given them, con- 
trary to the rules of war and contrary to every prin- 
ciple of humanity." 

On March 2nd, 1836, a convention of citizens, 
gathered at Washington on the Brazos, declared 
Texas a free and independent nation. 

Travis' troops had been massacred at the Alamo, 
and Fannin's murdered at Goliad. Houston was 
commander-in-chief of the remaining Texan forces. 
Santa Anna, thinking that an easy conquest of 
Houston's army awaited him, sought engagement. 
Houston bided his time until the Mexican troops 
encamped in a cul-de-sac between the Buffalo and 
San Jacinto Rivers, with a marsh at their back. 
Sunrise on April 21st, 1836, found Houston's army 
of about seven hundred Texans in a bit of woods 



SAM HOUSTON 



in front of Santa Anna's troops. As the morning 
broke, Houston sprang to his feet saying: "The 
sun of Austerlitz has risen again." Half a mile dis- 
tant were over two thousand trained enemy troops, 
sheltered by entrenchments. Between was a stretch 
of prairie, with no trees, brush or rocks for shelter. 
Secretly Houston had ordered the destruction of the 
bridge at Vinci. From the battlefield no retreat 
could be made. 

In the afternoon the charge was sounded. Down 
the lines dashed a horseman, Deaf Smith. Swing- 
ing an axe about his head, he shouted : "I have cut 
down the bridge at Vinci. Fight for your lives," 
With a wild shout, "Remember the Alamo!" the 
entire column rushed forward. At their head rode 
their courageous leader. When within a hundred 
yards of the Mexican breastworks, the enemy fired. 
Their shots were high. Houston's ankle was shat- 
tered, and a few soldiers were killed. In a moment 
the determined Texans were in the trenches. With 
sword and dagger they fought. The Mexicans were 
routed ; nearly seven hundred were killed, two hun- 
dred and eight were wounded, nearly a thousand 
prisoners were taken, and all with a loss to the 
victors of six killed and twenty-five wounded. Santa 
Anna fled. The following day he was found in 
civilian clothing, crawling along the bushes near 
the ruined bridge at Vinci. Texan independence 
was won. The treaty of Velasco concluded the 
war. Santa Anna in time was returned to Mexico. 



SAM HOUSTON 



The battle of San Jacinto was a military miracle. 
Two thousand trained veterans, the pick of an 
invading army of six or seven thousand, entrenched, 
protected on flanks by woodland, an open plain be- 
fore them, commanded by a tried general, were al- 
most annihilated, and their commander captured, 
all with small loss to the attackers, and this by one- 
third their number of plainsmen untaught in the 
art of war. 

In the fall of 1836 Houston was elected President 
of the new Republic. In 1837 the independence of 
Texas was recognized by the United States — the 
last official act of President Andrew Jackson. In 
1845 the Lone Star State gained admission to the 
Federal Union. 

Houston was one of the two first United States 
Senators from Texas. He took his seat in March, 
1846. Among his colleagues were Clay, Calhoun, 
Webster, Cass, Benton and many others who left a 
deep impress upon our national affairs. His ec- 
centric clothing, his broad-brimmed white beaver 
hat, the Indian blanket which he often wore, his 
habit of whittling while listening to the Senate pro- 
ceedings, together with his vastly interesting life, 
attracted much attention to him. During the war 
between the United States and Mexico he was often 
consulted. In his Senatorial career he strongly op- 
posed the secessionist doctrines. He vigorously ob- 
jected to the Kansas-Nebraska bill repealing the 
Missouri Compromise. 



SAM HOUSTON 



Frequently did he rise to defend or plead for the 
American Indians. In one of his speeches he said, 
"We have Indians on our Western border whose 
civilization is not inferior to our own. They have 
well organized societies ; they have villages and 
towns; they have their state-houses and their cap- 
itols ; they have females and men who would grace 
the drawing-rooms or salons of Washii.gton; they 
have a well organized judiciary, a trial by jury, and 
the writ of habeas corpus." One who reads the 
first Constitution of the Cherokee tribes cannot 
avoid, as a possible belief, that it was written by 
Houston himself. In recommending a policy to be 
adopted in dealing with the Indians he said, in 1855, 
after suggesting a modest military establishment in 
their midst, "Cultivate intercourse with the Indians. 
Show them that you have comforts to exchange for 
their peltries ; bring them around you ; domesticate 
them ; familiarize them with civilization ; let them 
see that you are rational beings and they will be- 
come rational in imitation of you. But take no 
whiskey there at all, not even for the officers, for 
fear their generosity would let it out. Do this and 
you will have peace with the Indians. * * * 

"The nature of an Indian can be changed. He 
changes under favorable circumstances and rises to 
the dignity of a civilized being. It takes a genera- 
tion or two to regenerate his race, but it can be, 
done." 

In December, 1859, Houston became Governor 



SAM HOUSTON 



of Texas. He opposed the secession of his State 
from the Union. When it did resolve upon seced- 
ing, he yielded, apparently believing that while 
Texas ought to stay within the Union, it should not 
be made to do so by force. Early in July, 1863, 
there came to him the news of the Confederates* 
surrender at Vickburg and of Lee's defeat at Get- 
tysburg. His heart was troubled. Three weeks 
later he died, and he was buried at Huntsville, 
Texas. 

The career of Houston is worthy of study. He 
was born east of the Alleghanies. Each new step 
in his life took him farther west. He was essen- 
tially a pioneer, ever moving on with the westward 
advance of Americans. The son of a Revolutionary 
soldier, the adopted son of an Indian chief, an In- 
dian fighter, lawyer, public prosecutor. Congress- 
man, Indian agent, military hero. Governor of two 
states, President of a Republic and United States 
Senator, are all titles that he honorably bore. The 
story of his part in inducing the annexation of Texas 
to the United States in interesting and worthy of 
investigation. Incident after incident in his career 
bespeaks the sturdiness of him and the whole race 
of American pioneers. About his life of great use- 
fulness is woven a web of true romance. 

Much could be said of his patriotic and political 
speeches and of the crude but powerful eloquence 
with which he delivered them. A good example of 
the Indian's style of address is found in the follow- 



SAM HOUSTON 



ing letter written by Houston upon the death of 
Flaco, a Lipan chief: 

"To the Memory of Gen. Flaco, Chief of Llpans: 

"My Brother:— 

"My heart is sad. A dark cloud rests upon your 
nation. Grief has sounded in your camp. The 
voice of Flaco is silent. His words are not heard 
in council. The chief is no more. His life has 
fled to the Great Spirit. His eyes are closed. His 
heart no longer leaps at the sight of buffalo. The 
voices of your camp are no longer heard to cry: 
"Flaco has returned from the chase." Your chiefs 
look down on the earth and groan in trouble. 
Your warriors weep. The loud voices of grief are 
from your women and children. The song of 
birds is silent. The ears of your people hear no 
pleasant sound. Sorrow whispers in the winds. 
The noise of the tempest passes. It is not heard. 
Your hearts are heavy. 

"The name of Flaco brought joy to all hearts. 
Joy was on every face. Your people were happy. 
Flaco is no longer seen in the fight. His voice is 
no longer heard in battle. The enemy no longer 
made a path for his glory. His valor is no longer 
a guard for your people. The right of your nation 
is broken. Flaco was a friend to his white 
brothers. They will not forget him^ They will 
remember the red warrior. His father will not be 
forgotten. We will be kind to the Lipans. Grass 
shall not grow in the path between us. Let your 
wise men give the counsel of peace. Let your 
yoimg men walk in the white path. The gray- 
headed men of your nation will teach wisdom. I 
will hold my red brothers by the hand." 



SAM HOUSTON 



The state of Texas, an expanse larger than any 
European country except Russia, and the American 
Federal Union, of which it is so important a part, 
are richer and better because for them whole heart- 
edly Sam Houston lived and broken-heartedly he 
died. 




STATL'l-: Ol 



AHKAIIAM LINCOLN AT SOl'lll i:.\ TU ANCM 
TO LINCOLN PARK. CllKACiO 



The story which begins in a log 
shack and ends at the White House is 
wonderful because it is simple. In it 
are no magic lamps or fairy wands. 
It is of an humble American boy who 
slowly and steadily educated himself 
by using well the materials at hand. 



Abraham Lincoln 

"Too oft the muse has blush'd to speak of men — 

No muse shall blush to speak her best of him. 
And still to speak her best of him is dumb. 

O lofty wisdom's low simplicity! 

O awful tenderness of noted power! — 
No man e'er held so much of power so meek. 

He was the husband of the husbandless, 

He was the father of the fatherless: 
Within his heart he weigh'd the common woe. 

His call was like a father's to his sons! 

As to a father's voice, they, hearing, came — 
Eager to oiler, strive, and bear, and die." 

— John James Piatt. 

PASSING up Tenth Street, in Washington, D. 
C, to a point opposite the old Ford Theatre, 
the attention is arrested by an American flag. It 
hangs above the door of an old three-story brick 
house — the house in which Abraham Lincoln died. 
It is a homely building, for a brief tenancy shelter- 
ing a homely man. Here it was that his great soul 
took flight. 

We climb the curving steps and through the door 
enter a narrow hall. Here the walls are covered 
with scores of pictures — all of him who, to his good 
fortune, was born in a log cabin, and, to ours, lived 
in the White House. What genius, what kindly 
tolerance seems to look out from these sunlight 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



records of a face ! We see him as the keen Illinois 
lawyer, patient and clear-thinking, but one whom 
the whip of wrong could lash to fiery energy. We 
see him as he looked in his debates with Douglas, 
modestly and calmly pursuing his opponent with 
relentless logic, and then, revealing in splendid 
eloquence the golden heart of his theme. In an- 
other picture he appears as he must have looked 
when, for the last time, he stood in Springfield, 
Illinois, and uttered his prophetic words of farewell. 

There is one, perhaps the first taken after that 
little girl in Buffalo, New York, asked him to grow a 
beard. One pauses long, studying picture after 
picture, each telling its story, each filled with mean- 
ing for him who has learned something of the 
career of our martyred President. 

Is it not significant that in every civilized lan- 
guage of the earth one can read of this Great Ameri- 
can. Is it not suggestive of his place in history to 
know that, though he died at the close of the Civil 
War, of him more books have probably been written 
than of any other man who ever trod this world — 
save only the founder of Christianity. 

The thoughts that come from the contemplation 
of the portraiture in the dingy hall seem to prepare 
the mind for entry to the room where the mortal 
and the immortal parted forever. As one silently 
crosses the threshold into the little chamber, he is 
glad that in so simple a place — the room of a 
Massachusetts soldier — the last drama of Lincoln's 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



life was played. There in the corner beside the 
door was the couch where came the kindly final 
summons — taps and then reveille. Within these 
walls had Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the 
ages." 

On that April morning in 1865, the great were 
gathered about the low walnut bed in this house of 
the tailor, William Peterson. Where the photo- 
graph of Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair" hung, now 
hangs a picture of the death-bed scene. In it are 
shown Mrs. Lincoln; the Cabinet members, Welles 
and Stanton ; Generals Halleck and Meigs ; Surgeon 
General Barnes; William Dennison; Robert Lin- 
coln ; Charles Sumner, and John Hay. Except for 
this picture, the room is bare. At this shrine no 
chancel or candelabra are needed. To worship here 
the devotee needs only the barren floor. 

Beyond this room is found another in which are 
gathered many miscellaneous articles once used or 
owned by Abraham Lincoln. Here, from his old 
Springfield home, is a kitchen stove, for which he 
often carried wood. His favorite chair stands empty. 
In this, doubtless, he had often sat engrossed with 
those thoughts whose utterance, translated into 
action, changed the history of the world. 

In other rooms are relics of his assassination. 
These have only a gruesome interest. Lincoln never 
would have chosen these to whet that morbid 
curiosity for tokens of outrage and crime which is 
possessed by some strange minds. His natural good 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



taste and his forgiving nature would have hidden 
them from prying eyes. But they are there, like a 
gunman's murderous weapon laid beside the tomb 
of his victim. 

Let us return to the room that has the greatest 
appeal. It is nine by seventeen feet. In this con- 
fined place he died. In a small cabin in Kentucky 
he was born. Each was large enough for such great- 
ness as was his. 

Let us stand here for a time and think of the 
child of the Kentucky backwoods who said, "A 
house divided against itself cannot stand. I be- 
lieve this government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided." 

It was he who so grounded his thought that he 
could sincerely appeal to a New York audience with 
these words, "Let us have faith that right makes 
might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do 
our duty as we understand it." 

How we can hear again those words of political 
wisdom: "You can fool all of the people some of 
the time and some of the people all the time, but 
you cannot fool all the people all of the time." 

To those who would break the law he speaks: 
"Let every man remember that to violate the 
law is to trample on the blood of his father and to 
tear the charter of his own and his children's 
liberty." Note where he stood on the question of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



toil : "I am always for the man who wishes to work." 
What did he say to those who would gain for them- 
selves by taking from others? He spoke thus: "Let 
not him who is houseless pull down the house of 
another, but let him work diligently and build one 
for himself, thus by example assuring that his own 
shall be safe from violence when built." 

Can any thinker fail to say amen to this: "I am 
not much of a judge of religion, but, in my opinion, 
the religion that sets men to rebel and fight against 
their government, because, as they think, that gov- 
ernment does not sufficiently help some men to eat 
their bread in the sweat of other men's faces, is not 
the sort of religion upon which people can get to 
heaven." 

Once a man was asked the explanation for his 
success in life. He answered, "I had a friend." 
Listen to these words of Lincoln: "The better part 
of one's life consists of his friendships; the loss 
of enemies does not compensate for the loss of 
friends." 

What wisdom is in this: "It is better only some- 
times to be right than at all times to be wrong." 

Will statesmen profit by reading this sentence 
from Lincoln? "Can aliens make treaties easier than 
friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faith- 
fully enforced between aliens than laws can among 
friends?" 

Here is a thought that all should ponder well: "It 
is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



who choose to vote that constitute the political 
power of the State." 

What a fund of sound, homely sayings he has 
left us! What a wealth of clearly expressed 
thought! His life is an inspiration to every child 
born or reared under the American fiag. In what 
other country in this world could genius rise from 
humble beginnings to such pre-eminence? He, with 
all the brave souls who believed in and followed 
him, left us a united country, forever indissoluble. 
He left us that principle written in heroic blood in 
our fundamental law that the rights of citizens are 
not to be denied on account of race, color or creed. 
These rich memories are revived in the humble 
room of the Washington tailor's house ; from it one 
can step into the rich sunshine and the free air, 
both richer and freer because Abraham Lincoln 
lived, toiled and died. 

As the events of his full life run before us, we 
see an angular child making his way from the land 
of Boone to the little shack erected in the woodland 
of Indiana. There, through the chinks in the wall, 
the night wind's song came to the rude pallet where 
lay a leader of men, to be. We see him in sorrow 
when his mother died. With him we watch the com- 
ing, with her wonderful furniture, of the stepmother, 
whose work for all time should be an example for all 
stepmothers. We see him poring over Weem's Life 
of Washington, a book which profoundly helped 
him. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



We watch him as he follows the ox-team to the 
new home in Illinois. We go with him down the 
Mississippi, and know his agony of soul as he stood 
by the slave block in New Orleans. We hear the 
lusty strokes as his axe rings in the Illinois clearing. 
We see him enforce respect for himself at New 
Salem. We grieve with him at the bier of Ann 
Rutledge. We follow him, the chosen captain of 
his fellows, in the Blackhawk War. We see him 
in the New Salem store, and under the trees with 
him we read Chitty and Blackstone, We carry the 
chain with him as a surveyor. We learn of his 
original mind, unprejudiced and unfettered by too 
many books, as he serves as a lawyer in Springfield 
and on circuit. We watch this tall, gaunt giant from 
the West as he sits in Congress. We travel with 
him through those memorable debates with Douglas 
when a far-seeing fate kept him from the Senate 
and saved him for the post of Chief Magistrate of 
the nation. We sit with him during those anxious 
days of the Chicago convention. We smile as we 
watch his face light up when the news of his nom- 
ination came from the Chicago "wigwam." We 
await the result of the fierce election contest, with 
the old political parties rent and torn with section- 
alism. We see him stand serene above all that is 
petty and sordid. We hear his first inaugural ad- 
dress and understand his plea for Union. We are 
by him in the terrible days and nights of the Civil 
War. We glory in his gentle strength as he holds 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



himself high above the impetuosity of friends and 
the rancor of foes. 

We hear his immortal address at Gettysburg, and 
think over those lines that every school boy should 
know. We see him patient to the end of the strife. 
"With malice toward none and charity for all," he 
prepares to "bind up the nations wounds." Then 
in the theatre across the street we hear the fatal shot. 
'Tis a soldier's death that he shall die. It was here 
they brought him. This is the very spot — a shrine 
in which nothing is but hallowed memories. 



The final guardian of our basic 
rights in this Federal Republic is the 
Supreme Court. 



Our Supreme Court 

"THE REPUBLIC." 

From "The Building of the Ship.'* 

"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 

Humanity with all its fears. 

With all the hopes of future years. 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 

We know what Master laid thy keel. 

What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel. 

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! 

Fear not each sudden soimd and shock, 

'Tis of the wave and not the rock; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail. 

And not a rent made by the gale! 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore. 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee!" 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

IT is well for Americans to remember that ours 
is by no means the first republic in the world's 
history; we have existed under our Constitution 
only since 1789. The Venetian Republic endured for 
eleven hundred years; the Roman Republic for five 
hundred years; the Athenian Republic, with a few 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



interruptions, for nine hundred years; and the 
Carthaginian Republic for seven hundred years. 
Other repubhcs, such as those of Genoa and Flor- 
ence, lived long. All of these failed primarily on 
account of the tendency of men granted great power, 
even in republics, to arrogate unto themselves more 
power. 

To illustrate: You will remember that Caesar, 
who undertook to gain for the Roman people their 
rights against the Roman Senate, himself became 
the master both of the Roman people and of the 
Roman Senate. Cromwell, who espoused the cause 
of popular rights in England, himself became the 
dictator of England ; and Napoleon, who undertook 
to spread the liberty won by the French Revolution, 
himself became the Emperor of France and sought 
to become the Emperor of all Europe. 

As the Roman Republic fell before the ambitions 
of one man, the Venetian democracy finally fell be- 
fore the Doges; Carthage became a victim to the 
ambitions of military men; the Republic of Genoa 
fell before an autocracy; the Republic of Florence 
succumbed to the ambitions of the Medici, and all 
the republics of the dim past ultimately became des- 
potisms or monarchies. 

It is interesting for us to inquire what institutions 
in our republican form- of government differ from the 
institutions of other republican governments that 
have existed, to determine, if we can, if there be any 
that promise perpetuity for the government of the 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



United States. There are many such institutions, 
but it is our purpose in this discussion to call atten- 
tion only to one — our Supreme Court. 

Before pointing out the unique position of that 
court among institutions, we wish to analyze briefly 
the meaning and origin of some of those human 
rights that our Supreme Court is designed to pro- 
tect. In the Magna Charta, which the barons 
wrested from King John of England, appear three 
Latin words, coined by whom we do not know, by 
whom written we do not know — three words that 
expressed for the first time a thought that was 
pregnant with meaning for governments upon this 
earth. Those words are per legem terrae (by the 
law of the land) — not meaning the law established 
by and getting its power from government, but that 
law which runs with the land, meaning the source of 
those rights that are the foundation, and not the 
grant, of government; that law which recognizes 
rights in the individual that are higher than govern- 
ment and higher than any act of government; 
natural rights, or rights that are possessed by men 
from the very fact of birth; rights coming from a 
far higher source than legislatures or courts. 

That same conception of human rights is found 
again in our Declaration of Independence, where it 
is said that men are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights, that among these are the 
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and 
further, that to secure — that is, to make safe — these 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



rights, governments are instituted among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed. The thought is that the right to hfe in- 
cludes the right to the security of one's person, of 
health, of the right to obtain a livelihood and of the 
security to character. The right to liberty and to 
the pursuit of happiness means the right to go, or 
to stay, unmolested — the right to enjoy family rela- 
tions, the right to work, the right to engage in 
honest business, the right to innocent recreation, 
the right to freedom of opinion, to freely speak and 
write the truth, to freedom of worship, and to the 
right of property. In short, liberty means the en- 
joyment of these fundamental rights to their fullest 
extent, and government does not give these rights, 
and is not designed to grant them, but is merely an 
instrument to secure and to protect them. This 
thought is quite the opposite of the theory of the 
divine right of kings. It is the theory of democracy, 
where the highest law is not to be found in the grace 
or will of a monarch or in the will of any man. 

Any democratic form of government to ade- 
quately secure these rights must necessarily be 
somewhat complicated. The simplest form of gov- 
ernment is an absolute despotism. In a democratic 
government, simple forms will not suffice, for a 
democratic government in order to endure should 
provide some means for guarding the fundamental 
rights of people against invasion, not only by in- 
dividuals but against invasion by the government 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



itself. The primary complaint of our Revolutionary 
forefathers against the mother country was a com- 
plaint against the usurpation of rights by the British 
Parliament. The Crown had granted to the colonies 
charters, some of which recognized and some of 
which created popular assemblies, and the Ameri- 
cans denied the right of the English Parliament to 
legislate for them or to invade any of their funda- 
mental rights. So, in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence no address was made to Parliament, but 
address and complaints were made directly to the 
Crown. 

As we have just said, democratic government 
must be more complicated than a despotism or an 
absolute monarchy, and so in our form of govern- 
ment, to protect against hasty action on the part of 
our government agencies, even in those fields that 
were given to governmental control, we introduced 
a system of checks and balances. For instance, the 
President, who is the head of the Executive De- 
partment, is the commander in chief of the army 
and navy, but in order that he may not arrogate 
unto himself monarchical powers, the right to de- 
clare war is vested in the Congress. In order that 
he may not become a despot as commander in chief 
of the army and navy, all power to raise revenue is 
reposed in the Congress, and in that Congress such 
measures must originate in the most popular branch 
thereof — the House of Representatives. Neither 
branch of Congress can pass a law without the con- 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



currence of the other and of the President, in whose 
hands a veto power is placed ; but in order that the 
veto power may not be abused, power is given the 
Congress to pass a bill over the President's veto. 
Next, there is our unique Judicial Department, 
headed by the Supreme Court. It is the only court 
in the world today, or in the world's history, that 
is in fact "supreme" — the only court that has the 
power to declare null and void an action of the 
Executive Department or an act of the Legislative 
Department; a power that it, itself, must exercise 
in accordance with the fundamental law of the land, 
as found in the Federal Constitution. 

It is not our purpose to discuss the various powers 
of the Supreme Court. We will not detail the 
methods of enforcing the limitation of powers 
placed upon political government or in settling the 
conflicting claims of states. We will not discuss its 
great appellate jurisdiction, nor will we enter into 
an analysis of its very important original jurisdic- 
tion. The point to which we wish to direct attention 
is generally to its function as the defender and 
expounder of the Constitution. Its position in this 
regard, and in regulating the dual sovereignty over 
the same territory of Federal and of State govern- 
ments, are the two most unusual features in Ameri- 
can political institutions. 

Our Constitution fixes and limits the powers of 
the Federal Government. Subservient to the limita- 
tions of the Constitution in certain spheres the 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



Federal Government is supreme, and in other fields 
the state governments are supreme. The Constitu- 
tion provides for certain forms of government, but 
in addition to this it guarantees to individuals their 
fundamental rights and makes the Supreme Court 
the arbiter and protector of those rights, whether 
they are invaded by other individuals, by a class of 
individuals, by a state government, by a federal con- 
gfess, by the President of the United States, or by 
anybody or any power. Those fundamental rights, 
briefly expressed in our Declaration of Independence 
as the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness, form the bulwarks of our liberty, and if an 
American should be asked to give one sound reason 
why the boasted liberty of the United States is 
superior to that claimed for any other government, 
he can very confidently answer that it is because the 
guarantee of fundamental individual rights is found 
in a written instrument whose basis is popular 
sovereignty — an instrument that secures those 
rights against all violation, even against violation 
by government itself, and that the power to guard 
and interpret those rights is placed in a court that 
is in fact supreme — a court that controls the con- 
duct of all other branches of government and that 
is designed forever zealously and impartially to 
protect the security of those rights against any 
aggression whatsoever. 

Now, how does it come about that the Supreme 
Court is the guardian of the fundamental rights of 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



individuals? Does the Constitution anywhere say 
that the Supreme Court shall guard the rights of 
individuals to life, to liberty, the right to the pur- 
suit of happiness, and all that this means? It does 
not; but the Constitution first guarantees certain 
fundamental rights. For instance, it provides that 
Congress shall make no law respecting the establish- 
ment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof. It guarantees freedom of speech. It guar- 
antees the right of people peaceably to assemble ; the 
right to petition the government for redress of griev- 
ances, and the security of people in their persons 
and in their houses, papers and effects against un- 
reasonable search and seizure. It guarantees trial 
by jury, also that no person shall in a criminal case 
be compelled to be a witness against himself, that 
no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or prop- 
erty without due process of law, and that private 
property shall not be taken for public use without 
just compensation. It guarantees these and many 
other rights specifically in the Bill of Rights, as the 
first ten amendments are commonly called by 
Americans, and by implication originally and now 
it guarantees these and all of the fundamental rights. 
By its Sixth Article, the Constitution is made the 
supreme law of the land, and it is the law of the 
land as far as inherent rights are concerned, in the 
same sense in which that term was used in the 
Magna Charta. By Article Three of the Constitu- 
tion the judicial power of the United States is 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



vested in the Supreme Court and in such inferior 
courts as Congress may establish; the Supreme 
Court in administering the law must interpret it in 
the light of the Constitution, which places the fun- 
damental rights of individuals above the power of 
the Legislative Department to take away, above the 
power of the Executive Department to invade, and 
above all power except that of the people them- 
selves, who can limit or abandon their rights only 
through amending the Constitution. 

The thought found in these institutions goes far 
beyond that embodied in any other government on 
earth. The English government never went so far. 
Under the English system of government the Par- 
liament, or legislature, is supreme ; the Judicial De- 
partment is only a subservient branch of govern- 
ment, — having no power to declare any law un- 
constitutional, no matter how seriously it may 
invade the fundamental rights of individuals. Par- 
liament is the supreme power. It can repeal any 
law. It can repeal Magna Charta itself, or the Act 
of Settlement, or any of the governmental acts de- 
signed to secure to English citizens their funda- 
mental rights. Under our government no such 
power resides in the legislature or in the executives 
or in the courts. We have rights above government, 
rights that run with the land, rights that exist be- 
cause people are born with them. 

The experience of our Revolutionary forefathers 
taught them that representative government as then 



OUR SUPREME COURT 



existing in the world could not always be depended 
upon to secure to human beings their fundamental 
rights, so in founding our government they not only 
devised a system of checks and balances to prevent 
the lodgement of too great power in one man or in 
any one group of men, but they placed our funda- 
mental rights in theory and in fact above the power 
of government to invade. To interpret and secure 
those rights they established a court that is in fact 
supreme. Having thus created for the first time in 
the world's history a really popular government 
where the source of rights is in the people them- 
selves, and in them because they are born with 
those rights, and are retained by them as against the 
government which they established, we took an- 
other step and protected ourselves against hasty or 
ill-considered action by making it impossible to cur- 
tail any of these fundamental rights even in exer- 
cising our power as sovereigns over ourselves, ex- 
cept it be done through the machinery that the 
Constitution provides for amending the fundamental 
law. So, of the unique and beneficial American in- 
stitutions designed to give to men the full enjoy- 
ment of those rights which are theirs by reason of 
their birth, our Supreme Court stands as a powerful 
instrument designed to protect them through its 
function as the defender of the Constitution. 



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